


The Devil's Advocate

by Nitrobot



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Angst, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Hate to Love, Kidnapping, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-05-20 03:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5990908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arcee has been kidnapped by Starscream for a very special mission; to help him kill Megatron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Took me long enough to get this thing hammered out, considering I've had the idea for a year or so, but better late than never. We all have SS_Shitstorm to thank for kicking my ass into gear. 
> 
> I'm anticipating about 4 or 5 chapters, in total, but I'm still working out the overall plot. I just wanted to get a first chapter out to gauge initial responses and whether it's worth continuing.
> 
> EDIT: wow this ended up being about twice as long so go figure

The first thing Arcee registered, after the ink-blots of unconsciousness finally cleared from her stuttering HUD, was pain. Her helm echoed, the metal lining it vibrating stubbornly as if it'd been subjected to a sander, and her stinging wrists were damp with what felt like congealed energon. 

As internal systems slowly slogged back online, a flashing circuit of aches and cramps started to fill in her sensor nodes. Her neck cables protested as she stretched them, angling her ringing helm up and only managing to support it against a cold wall at her back that pressed her winglets flat. The surface of her optics sparked, a dim firework show across her HUD as they tried to filter some light through the darkness. All she could clearly see was the numb blue glow around her hands- definitely energon, along with thin lines of something shackling them together- and the hefty outline of something clamped on her ped wheels. She felt herself frowning, forced her servos to shift and found them firmly anchored to somewhere above her by a noose of chain dangling from her manacles.

"Those restraints should look familiar to you, Arcee. After all, you had me clamped in them not so long ago." The painfully familiar voice was like ice being poured over her audios, encasing her processor and trickling down her throat towards her spark core. Like a fang-fringed shadow, Starscream slinked into view with lofty wings framing his grin.

"What the frag did you do to me?" Arcee's glossa burned, either from the acid in her words or the raw croak of her dormant vocaliser. Her neck snapped backwards, letting her look closer at the manacles around her wrists with clenched digits clawing into her hands, and sparing her from Starscream's eternally insufferable smirks. The cuffs themselves were certainly of Autobot branding, but it was the bulky lock around her wheels that confirmed the truth; they were the same clamps that held Starscream's wings together, only modified to stop her spokes turning even when she forced her engine power way past what her energon stores could properly fuel. The cuffs were stubbornly strong, and Starscream just laughed at the futile rev of her engine as it eventually flagged and died. 

"I just did what any opportunistic Decepticon would do when faced with an Autobot wandering all by herself," he said, approaching just out of kicking range even when his chin was such a promising target, as he knelt down to drill his optics into her properly. When she refused to meet his glare, he forced her helm up with claws biting into her chin. "I used my initiative." 

Her processor still struggled to keep up with the course of events, never mind recollecting those that had left her abandoned here- wherever 'here' was. Wrenching her helm away from him and his cold, snarling vents only made the talons scar and sting deeper into her faceplate, but the pain was worth at least being able to pretend he wasn't so close to her. He eventually let go, allowing her helm to sag and drip energon down her shuddering chestplates.

"Whatever you have planned, the Autobots will find me before you can do it," she hissed through clenched denta. 

He laughed again, the soundwaves grating against every active node in her protoform. "Oh, they _would_ find you... if Decepticon ships didn't mask all life signals inside their hulls."

The scuffed and charred black plating beneath her legs looked much more familiar now- she'd found Starscream trussed up and thrown aside on the exact same material, just before he'd pleaded Optimus for amnesty that they all knew he didn't deserve. ' _The Harbinger...'_

"Besides, now's not the time to be worrying yourself about rescues," Starscream said with all the sympathy of an executioner, pushing back onto his peds with his wings flaring up behind him. "I just wanted a little... talk with you, is all."

Arcee would have laughed if she wasn't sure her vocaliser would snap in half from trying, but her twitching winglets got her amusement across. "If you kidnap and cuff all your conversation partners, that's probably why you don't have any left around here," she suggested.

Starscream's shrug was hampered by the weight of his wings. "So blame me for having standards. I think _you_ of all bots will be interested in what I have to say, though..."

She had to wait for him to lean against the wall opposite her, and his smirk spawned a grin while her impatience shot up like a fever. When he finally spoke again, she was on the verge of just cutting her hands off on the cuffs and pummeling him with her servo stumps.

"I'm going to destroy Megatron, and I require your assistance in doing it," he said.

His tone made the task seem as simple as getting on a Minicon's nerve nodes. Now Arcee couldn't hold back her mirth, disbelief bubbling up from her vocaliser in a snorting giggle. "Better bots than you have tried and failed."

His wings faltered and dropped a few inches, making his second shrug more obvious. "Every failure is just one more step towards success." As much as he tried to keep that confidence up, the cracks still showed through.

"In that case, shouldn't you already be in charge by now?" Arcee asked, intent on pushing the cracks wider. She was rewarded with a glare half-hidden by thin optic lids, and his wings lowering to become two bulky testaments to frustration astride his spinal strut. 

"I see you're the type to use humour for dealing with trauma," Starscream noted, clicking his peds together before transferring the sound to the floor, again stopping just out of range of her shackled peds as his lips curled. "Cliffjumper was the same-"

"Don't you fragging _dare_!" she screamed, outrage burning as white-hot shards lodged in her vocaliser. Though she knew the attempt was worthless, her spark crackled with enough electric fury that her limbs shot out in a desperate need to claw that smirk into ribbons. The chain holding her servos up clattered against its links but refused to give into her thrashing, and her peds could barely lift from the ground from the weight of the bolt keeping them together. She could only imagine how ridiculous she must have looked then, but the rampaging rush of rage overloaded everything that made sense in her processor.

"I suppose you're not, then..." Starscream huffed, watching her throw her tantrum with a disinterest that only made her even more angry. Insistent 'low fuel' warnings eventually forced her to stop writhing against her bonds, and she was left breathless and boiling hatred while energon coursed from her wounds. The whole while, Starscream only moved to stop his peds getting in the way of a quickly spreading cyan puddle.

"My generous offer still stands, though," he said, with a teasing lilt turning his words into a mocking sing-song dedicated to her helplessness. "Help me detatch Megatron's helm from his shoulders and see if he actually does have a processor speak of; I assure you, the benefits will more than outweigh any cost to you."

Arcee didn't even have the strength left to pull her helm up. She had to let it loll sideways, with one fuzzy optic burning skeptically at him. "What makes you think you'll actually succeed this time?" she asked, hating how quiet and weak anger had made her words become.

"That's for me to know and reveal when I feel necessary," Starscream said, with a disturbing vocal void where smugness should have been. Even his smile seemed halfway genuine, though it was still like staring into a Scraplet's maw. 

"And what happens to me after you take his place?" she asked, suspending all reason and proof that no-one, barring Primus himself, would be able to send Megatron to the Pit.

"Depends on my mood," Starscream answered, threading his claws together with piercing clicks. "I might let you go. Or I might hold onto you for a while and see just how important you are to the Autobots..." He huffed scraps of laughter at her energon-stained scowl. "Believe me, Arcee, I want this to be a mutually beneficial partnership," he said, fanning his equally stained claws over where his spark would be. "Just think of the aftermath; I finally rid the universe of its most murderous parasite, and your friends can enjoy a life free of Megatron."

"Assuming you won't carry on the tradition of trying to hunt us all down?" she spat.

"Like I said..." Starscream dipped low, forcing himself and his angling wing tips into her fading vision like a splash of crimson-studded quicksilver. "That all depends on your co-operation." He retreated again, clicking and clacking and humming away while she felt her spark sputtering in its chamber. There was a rustle of chains being pulled, and the pressure on her servo joints lifted suddenly. She blinked as her arms fell as dead weights in her lap, and as she tried to lift them up a a glowing ingot of energon was tossed at her peds. "Drink up," Starscream advised from somewhere in the gloom. "I'm sure you'll see the sense of it with a clearer processor."

Her digits struggled to grasp the cube, but when they finally pinched an edge she tore away the container with her denta and downed the entire contents. Most of it leaked down her faceplate, joining the silent tracks of coolant from her optics. She wondered when she started crying, just before stasis lock shrouded her.


	2. Chapter 2

A constant, slow muffled drip of liquid hitting liquid was what finally woke her up. She groaned past a heavy, gummed up glossa, and slowly opened her optics lest a sudden flood of brightness blind her.

She was right to be cautious- the previous metallic dusk had been replaced with the blue glow of monitors and screens throwing neon across the Harbinger's husk. From her viewpoint, she seemed to be chained at the very front of the ship where the command center lay, looking down through a corridor into the main laboratory where Starscream was working and muttering away. 

"Damn crystals take so long to refine, I might as well wait for Megatron to perish by himself..." His wings pinched together at the central joint, his ped struts and claws made sharp scratching sounds as he scuffed them impatiently against the floor and his hips respectively. Though her sensor nodes were mostly numb now, the sound pierced Arcee's already sensitive audios so that she hissed past the sticky remains of energon in her denta. Starscream angled his helm towards her, almost looking surprised that she was still there.

"Ah, Sleeping Beauty awakens again," he simpered as his wings fluttered up. "I was beginning to think you'd just recharge through all the fun of our little venture."

Arcee shook herself as much as her restraints would allow, still trying to get her mouth and processor working properly. "What are you doing?" she eventually asked, noticing the primitive energon processing rig next to him. Starscream followed her stare with a smug twitch of his slag-eating grin.

"Refining some of that lovely red energon you let me steal right from under you," he answered, tapping the glass container and the shallow red fluid pooling inside. "You know, I hear Knockout was quite fond of the stuff during the war... racing mechs are notoriously easy to hook onto all sorts of additives."

Arcee wasn't paying much attention to the gossip, as she just noticed the lack of energon both processed and bled out on her armour. She rubbed at her chestplates to make sure they really were as polished as they looked. "Did you... did you _clean_ me while I was-?!"

"I saved you the job of doing it yourself, didn't I?" Starscream cut in, almost sounding hurt by her objection. "Besides, stale energon attracts all sorts of ghastly creatures, even off Cybertron."

Arcee grimaced more at the thought of those murderous claws being anywhere near her armour, now rubbing at the healing wounds on her shackled wrists. "I'd rather have woken up with an Insecticon nibbling on me anyway..."

Starscream threw another offended look at her, knitting his eyeridges together as he approached the command center and the brace strut she was chained to. "Why all the hostility, Arcee? I give you fuel, some motivation, a free wash... I'm even thinking of loosening those cuffs somewhat."

Arcee's tanks almost boiled from the nuclear furnace of her spark. "You. **Killed**. My partner." Again the snarl singed her throat, but it was the only way to vent the heat of her anger before it burned her alive from the inside.

While she made the air shimmer with furious vents, Starscream let one of his ridiculously large eyeridges shoot upwards. "You're _still_ going on about that?" he said in disbelief. "Primus, I know _I_ bragged a lot about it, but you put even me to shame." He came a few steps closer, still just out of reach of her itchy digits and her urge to scratch them against his spark. "You said it yourself, Arcee; you've lost a partner before and, I assume, countless teammates. _Everyone_ has. I thought you'd be used to death by now- we are in a _war_ , after all."

Arcee would have spat at him, but her glossa was too dry, like an ingot of iron in her mouth. "We _were_ in a war, all because of that fragging _sadist_ you sucked up orders from for the past seven millennia." Her optics started to sting, though the coolant leaking from them almost evaporated as soon as it touched the heat of her faceplate. The drops started to fall on the floor as her neck cables went limp in a defiant refusal to let Starscream see her weep like a sparkling. "Three years of peace... that's all you allowed us before you started the whole damn thing over again. Before you killed Cliffjumper in cold energon."

There was a cold silence apart from her ragged ventilations, not even the tap of talons daring to slice through it. "...Megatron was the one who brought him back," Starscream said, almost defensively.

"I don't care. You're the one who made me lose him in the first place." Arcee's voice was a quiet monotone, and her spark a hollow husk devoid of even rage. Energon was all she was running on now. 

Starscream must have sensed her defenses crashing down. "And _you're_ so innocent among your peers?" he sneered, and it felt like he'd sank denta needles right through her chamber. "You, who took down an entire gestalt team in the Battle of Tesarus and snuffed their sparks out one by one?" He spat a derisive snort through his vents. "Continue to harbour your hatred if you wish, Arcee. But even I must admit that you're too intelligent to believe it's justified anymore so than a priest hating Primus for a rainy day."

She heard him retreating with one last scuff of his wings rubbing against each other, and only when his steps stopped did she furiously scrape away the coolant tracks on her face. She looked at those red optics and pinprick icy pupils, those gravestone slab wings, and all she could see was a sparkless reaper. His victims were far less so than what Megatron might have boasted, but they had names she recognised intimately. For all she knew, Cliffjumper wasn't the first friend he'd taken from her. 

But at the same time, she'd lost track of how many Decepticon sparks she'd seen go out. She didn't like to think about them, but ignoring something didn't make it fade away from her conscience. A spark was a spark no matter the insignia on its bearer, an orb of precious energy and an extension of Primus himself. In that regard, Primus and anyone else without loyalties to haze their judgement would judge her as Starscream's equal.

Arcee remembered the Battle of Tesarus well, yet she couldn't make herself regret the lives she took during it. Her denta bit her bottom lip, piercing through the chapped metal and flooding her hissing mouth with energon.

She had bigger problems than a morality crisis, anyway. Though all her systems were online, her comm system couldn't send anything through the Harbinger's static field, the same one that masked her signal from the Autobots. With no T-Cog he must have a Ground Bridge somewhere on the ship, but he'd never leave the controls within her reach. Her built in weaponry was bust, either from interference or something Starscream snapped in her. As for her cuffs, she knew there was little that could break through the tempered metal aside from a laser or a Dinobot's jaw. 

She wasn't getting out- not today, at least.

She sucked her lip until the bleeding stopped, rolling the broken skin between her protoform. "With that red energon..." Her voice wavered when she tried to raise its volume, but it got Starscream's attention back to her. "Couldn't you just zap behind Megatron and stab him before he noticed you?"

Thankfully the Seeker chose not to gloat over the victory he must have known he had over her. He just huffed past an amused smile. "I did try that once. A century or so into my tenure as his second in command, I commandeered a red mine in Tarn. I managed to get through a legion of drones set to kill on sight and Megatron's own personal guard before I ran into an ionic shield that he had... put in place the previous solar cycle..." He trailed off when he realised the story confirmed how much of a moron he could be, and shook his helm. "No matter. I know every inch of the Nemesis; layout, weaknesses, every possible route in and out. All I need is a way onboard, and _someone_ to distract Megatron while I tear out his wretched spark right in front of him..." He held his claws around an imaginary orb, surely picturing Megatron's life force oozing out between them, while Arcee gave him a look of pure deadpan disbelief. 

" _That's_ your grand plan?" she asked. "Sneak through the Nemesis and have me draw his optics while you somehow get through his chest armour?"

Starscream held back a snarl at her sarcasm. "It's a work in progress, and a damn sight better than anything your _Autobots_ have ever come up with." His optics squinted, as if trying to burn through her own armour with them. "What were _you_ doing out here, anyway? No backup, no courtesy call from that sparklingsitter Prime of yours..."

"If you must know, I was investigating something," Arcee said, returning the Seeker's invasive glare tenfold. "An EM disturbance that turned out to be this ship." Yet she'd wandered so far from the Ground Bridge spawn point, unless Ratchet was monitoring her every step, the Autobots wouldn't be able to directly track her. 

Whether or not Starscream knew that, he couldn't stop a smug expression creeping onto his faceplate. "Well, curiosity killed the cirkitten. Speaking of which..." Whatever the chains of her cuffs were attached to, he reached out of her line of sight to pull the links off and hold them between his claws. It occurred to Arcee how easy it would be for him to drag her across the floor. "Believe it or not, I don't want to have to keep you bolted to the wall, but it's the only way I can be sure you won't go wandering." He threaded the chain between his talons as he spoke, as if handling a snake. "But if you _really_ want these off, I need two things from you. An agreement to my plan, whatever it may turn out being, and assurance that you won't try running back to the Autobots too early."

Though Arcee tried to focus on Starscream's face, she couldn't stop her optics flicking at the glinting chain. She could have it wrapped around his neck in five nanoklicks if her wrists, still raw with wounds, weren't bolted to each other. "You'd really trust my word?" she asked.

"Not your word. Just my certainty that you don't want a rocket launched into your spinal strut should I see you trying to leave."

Arcee exhaled through a hard scowl. The message was simple; as long as she behaved, she'd stay alive. "Fine. I... I'll help. Only because I hate Megatron more than I can hate you."

Starscream's smile grew fatter as he let the links drop to the floor. "See, you _are_ smart." He left her to reposition herself more comfortably, though she only had the strength to pull herself into the passenger seat behind her. "Though you understand I'll need to keep the wheel locks and shackles themselves on you," he continued. "If you go too far from me, I'll be instantly alerted- though, I suppose you know how your own cuffs work." He laughed to himself as she recalled the classes with Prowl where she'd first learned how to use them on prisoners.

"A shame we didn't have the explosive kind back at base," she muttered mostly to herself, but just loud enough for Starscream to be curious.

"The what?"

Arcee made herself mirror one of his insidious smiles. "If you try taking them off, they blow up on you." 

Starscream went still, no doubt picturing himself reduced to a pile of melted struts and wings, before giving a second more uncomfortable laugh as he retreated back to his lab.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far I'm really pleased with how this has been going, especially with people enjoying it :) I'm anticipating maybe 6-7 chapters instead now, but the plot is still evolving so who knows what it might end up being. Whatever the case, I'm gonna be trying to get the whole thing wrapped up ASAP so I don't end up forgetting about it like most of my other multi chapter fics.

It was only by her third thorough scan of the command center that Arcee finally admitted defeat in trying to find an easy escape route and let her taut limbs go limp. Though she was grateful for the soft backing against her spinal strut, she couldn't make herself relax. Not with the philosophical murderer right next door. 

If her peds didn't clank like weights whenever they hit the floor she might have tried just sneaking past him, since his lab occupied so much of his attention. The chain was gone from her cuffs, and she couldn't see anything else heavy lying around to club his helm in with. The shackles themselves might knock him out, but she doubted she'd even manage to reach her wrists up to his helm without him noticing.

Maybe that was on purpose. A tiny, mostly hidden part of her was actually looking forward to the prospect of offlining Megatron, no matter how impossible it seemed with only two bots against a flying fortress. And as much as the thought of Starscream taking the warlord's place should have made her spark flare with fury, she couldn't help remembering that Megatron's disappearance three years ago was all that allowed the hesitant peace between Autobots and Decepticons to exist. Starscream might have just been holding his might back out of fear of punishment on Megatron's return... or maybe he just didn't see purpose in hunting them down. Arcee could hardly remember the last time she could drive down an empty road without having her scanners on standby, or when the only thing that worried her was stones popping her tires. Back then as long as the 'Bots didn't cause trouble at energon mines, they were more or less left alone.

Cliffjumper knew the risk of going near the mine, especially with the Nemesis and drone reinforcements so close by. So... wasn't his death as much his own fault as it was Starscream's?

She would have slapped herself if the bulky cuff encasing her wrist didn't stop her. Instead she settled with throwing herself back in her seat, biting at her torn lip again with a stubborn glare at Starscream's back and the lazily waving wings hanging from it. He seemed to think staring at the energon rig would make it process faster.

"So how does it work?" she called, forcing him to spin around on his heels.

"How does _what_ work?" he asked, claws almost digging into his hips.

"Red energon," she said with a nod at the crimson crystals being fed into the refinery. "I know it makes you fast, but... there must be more to it than that." She never thought she'd be so bored as to ask after industrial chemistry, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Starscream, on the other servo, seemed only too eager to dispense with all his useless knowledge. "Indeed there is. It's more dense than regular energon, so when ingested it ends up on the bottom of the tanks and is prioritised by the fuel pump. And when the pump circulates it through the fuel lines, it... well, the details are complicated, but essentially it sends the body into an 'overdrive' mode. Movements become so quick that the normal optic cannot perceive them, and in turn everything seems to slow down to a crawl."

From what Arcee heard, it seemed that the energon would be the key to getting herself back to the Autobots alive. But just as she was calculating how quickly she could swipe the canister and down the contents before Starscream could stop her, the Seeker activated some kind of shield around the equipment that cut it off from all interference, even stopping Starscream himself from incessantly tapping it.

"Though I'm afraid if you’re homesick already, you'll have to try harder than just stealing from me, Arcee,” he said pointedly, the spires of his denta glinting like poison as he smirked. As often as Arcee damned him as a moron, it seemed he’d thought of just about everything she might use to escape.

“But if you're still hungry for fuel..." She kept her vanquished scowl hidden from his view, so the energon cube skidding just below her peds was a surprise. She looked up, watching Starscream lingering in the doorway just as he watched her, then hesitantly leaned forward to pluck the cube from the floor.

"Why so generous with your rations, Starscream?" she asked, almost expecting the energon to start leaking out between her digits even as her glossa licked over her frail lips.

"All the effort I put into capturing you would go to waste if I just let you starve to death,” he explained with a dismissive wave of his claws. “Besides, I have plenty from a little heist I pulled on the Nemesis, which your... Prime was on board, for some reason."

"That'll be because Megatron mechnapped him,” Arcee mentioned, passing the cube suspiciously under her olfactories. “Suppose that's another reason for me to enjoy killing him…” she mumbled while submitting to a sip of fuel.

"See, you're getting into the spirit of it,” Starscream chuckled, making his wings wiggle almost comically. Arcee tried not to laugh, choking slightly on her drink before thirst made her gulp the whole cube down.

"So what am I supposed to do while you're working on your 'glorious plan'?” she asked when she finished, letting the empty cube fall to the ground with a faint clink. “Just lie around guzzling fuel while my cables rust?"

Starscream quirked an eyeridge. "You seem to be making a hobby out of complaining. See, if I trusted you a little more, you could help with my plan, but _nooo_ , you had to go moaning about it."

Now it was Arcee’s turn to be affronted. "Well, it's not my fault a certain static generator is completely messing up anything else I'd use to distract myself." She couldn't even open a quick Tetris game she had Jack install on her HUD without getting an error. 

Starscream growled like a hungry turbofox. “If I give you some more… details, then will you shut up?” he asked, pinching his forehelm with talons.

Arcee shrugged, already enjoying his frustration. “Might help.”

“Fine, fine…” Like a sparkling in the middle of a tantrum he stamped over to another passenger seat opposite her own, and firmly sat down. “As slow as the energon processing is going, it seems I'll only end up with enough for two doses, maximum. That would be one for each of us, when the time arises.”

“Assuming we even manage to get on board the Nemesis?” Arcee interjected.

“Well, _I'd_ be able to just fly right up to it if it wasn't for that meddling scout of yours... “ He shook his helm, though his scowl only subsided by an inch. “No matter. I have a perfectly viable alternative.”

“Which would be?”

Starscream must have not expected her to press further. His expression froze into one of uncomfortable surprise, and when it thawed his smile was obviously fake. “Well, as much as I'd relish tearing your T Cog out… I already have a willing donor in mind.” As he spoke he rose from his chair and walked back to his lab, and Arcee felt compelled to follow behind. Again the possibility of cuff-clubbing his helm sprang up in her mind, but piqued curiosity made her squash it back down as she strolled past consoles, screens and all sorts of equipment she couldn't even name with Ratchet trying to lecture her. Starscream paused halfway down the length of the room, almost making her crash into his wings. She quickly recovered for the sake of her dignity, and took some nanoklicks to notice that the Starscream she was looking at hung on the wall wasn’t the same one who imprisoned her, or even alive.

“You _cloned_ yourself?” Hearing her say it out loud still made the prospect sound both ridiculous and terrifying in equal amounts.

“Technically I only uploaded my CNA schematics into five blank protoforms, but… yes, I supposed I did,” Starscream said, flicking a talon against his twin’s chin and making the limp helm wobble up and down. “Sadly this one was the only one to survive an… unsuccessful attempt on Megatron's life.”

Arcee might have been picking up some habits from Starscream, but she couldn’t stop one of her own eyeridges rising up. “So five of you couldn’t take him out, yet you think you'll do better with just one?”

Starscream looked like he was going to protest,but he settled for a frown instead. “You're underestimating yourself, Arcee.” He turned away before she could glean any meaning from it, navigating through rows of tables to one in particular holding up a variety of tools, none of which she could name.

“Back to more important matters, this was… another reason why I needed a partner.” His vocaliser seemed to struggle as he took one of the instruments in his hand, what looked like a set of barbed tongs. “I know _how_ to perform the transplant, but… it would be more successful with a second pair of servos.”

Arcee blinked. So not only would she become an accessory to warlord-icide, she was expected to perform surgery on one of her mortal enemies. Apprehension made it mandatory that she say something snarky to cover it up. “Too scared to do it yourself?”

“I am _NOT_ -!” Starscream ended his outburst early, practically swallowing it whole. “Not at all,” he hissed through courtesy clenched denta. “But if _you_ had to shove something inside your already failing systems, I'm sure you'd appreciate having someone else to hold your protoform open.” He started gathering his tools together before she had a chance to argue. “Now come over here... the sooner I get this over with, the better.”


	4. Chapter 4

Starscream had already settled himself on the operating table by the time Arcee fully processed what he was asking of her. His aerial alt mode was the singular advantage that he had over the Autobots, and only with him losing it did they stand any chance of defeating him in a one-on-one battle. More specifically, it was the only thing that made him Arcee’s own equal in terms of weaponry.

And that was all assuming she didn't end up killing him during the procedure- accidentally or not.

"And why should I help _you_ get an alt mode back when I can't even use mine?" Arcee asked, crossing her servos in refusal of the scalpel Starscream held out towards her. His talons gripped the handle harder, scoring grooves into it as he growled.

"This is not the time to be petty, two-wheeler. Either suck up your bitterness and help me, or get used to being under Megatron's claws for the rest of your short life." 

As overdramatic as the statement was, Arcee’s will to survive the remainder of the war intact outweighed her need to see Starscream suffer. Still, even if she wasn't operating on an enemy, she was no medic. Anything beyond a simple field patch up and scratch buff was way beyond her. “Do you really want someone like me slicing you open?”

Starscream’s expression curdled. “Believe me, you wouldn't be my first choice, but you're the only one I have. Just do exactly as I say, unless you actually like having those restraints stuck on you.” Though his snarl was convincing enough, it couldn't mask the tremor in his vocaliser; the one that showed he was just as nervous as she was. He knew how dangerous she was, how quickly she would offline him given the chance, yet he was the one literally offering her a knife to gut through him.

He really _was_ desperate, then. Arcee finally took the scalpel from him, rubbing her digits over the marks left by his claws as he lay back on the tilted table.

“Now, there's two ways to proceed…” Starscream hissed stale air through both vents and olfactories. “I can either endure an incision through my side, directly cutting into where my T Cog should be, or… accessing through my chest, since the cog goes right underneath the spark chamber. Each have their own range of complications and countless things to go wrong, so it really makes no difference which one you choose."

Arcee’s optics flicked to both his chest, rising and falling slowly with his stilted breaths, and the point above his hip where one of his talons tapped. "Which is less dangerous?" she asked. Though this opportunity to terminate him would never come again, she wasn't so blinded by revenge that she'd jeopardise any chance at ending the war early.

Starscream stared at her, as if trying to figure out whether she actually was planning to kill him. "In the short-term, the first one, though there's always the possibility of the incision becoming infected. So if you want a chance of me dropping dead later, I'm sure you'll enjoy that method." He flashed a knowing smirk at her, obviously goading her into some sort of confession that, just this once, she needed him alive.

She weighed up the options for a few long moments, staring at the blade in her hand and Seeker-turned-sacrificial lamb in front of her. "I'll risk going through the chest,” she decided.

Starscream’s optics widened in surprise, and his mouth flattened into an impartial line. "...Very well." He turned his helm so he was staring at the ceiling, and air rattled in and out of his vents. “When I open my chest plating, I'll indicate where to cut into.”

Arcee’s optics narrowed in confusion. “Aren't you going to induce stasis?” That had been her assumption, that Starscream would give her all the directions before hand, but he stubbornly shook his helm. 

“And let you run off to leave me here? No, I'll happily take my chances with the pain instead.” That he would endure the waking agony about to follow just to make sure she stayed put said a lot more than he would have meant to, Arcee couldn't help thinking, but she let the scalpel blade cut into her palm to chase the notion away.

She watched as his chestplates slid apart from each other and folded outwards, baring a crystalline chamber around a pulsing, yellow-tinged orb. She'd never seen a spark aside from her own, which swelled up for some reason at the sight of another, and she'd half-expected his chamber to be a dull husk, the ember inside it burned down to an ugly lump of coal. But the glowing sphere was as bright as Praxus’ midnight skyline, like Primus had plucked a star from the cosmos and placed it inside every one of his creations. And it was far too beautiful to belong to someone like Starscream.

Still snared in awe, Arcee only managed to move herself when her vocaliser jolted first. "Your spark doesn't match your optics,” she noticed. Though the diffused light fit with his reticules, it didn't explain where the crimson of his irises came from. 

"Seekers transmit the light differently,” he explained with a rough edge of impatience. “Now hurry up already. Just cut right across the floor of the plating.”

Squinting against the glare from his chamber, Arcee almost didn't see the grey protoform that separated his main chest armour from the thick cables that made up his abdomen. Transferring her scalpel to the other hand, she still struggled to maneuver the blade parallel to the taut metal skin without brushing her wrist against the chamber taking up so much space. The knife eventually managed to cut into the metal, finding purchase in the slice it made as Starscream hissed through a groan above her. Her concentration wavered, optics flicking up to his helm, and she only continued when he gave a small nod. The blade glided with surprising ease through the protoform underneath it, welling energon in its wake, and Arcee was halfway across his chest when he tensed and, half a klick later, his vocaliser screeched when her hand was hit with a sudden burst of warmth.

"DON'T-!" Whatever she did to inevitably frag up, Starscream let the whole planet know of it from the shriek that echoed through the Harbinger’s hull. Arcee almost dropped the scalpel inside him as she instantly snapped away from his chest.

"What, what happened?!" she asked, scanning the cavity for anything wrong with it and trying to ignore the fresh sting on the back of her hand.

"Oh, nothing really, you just almost made my spark core collapse in on itself!” Starscream panted as Arcee noticed his spark spasming hysterically, as if trying to leap out of his chamber, and his wings fluttering like they were about to fly him off the table.

“Well, I didn't do it on purpose!” she protested, splattering energon drops on the floor as she threw her servos out.

"I know you didn't!” Starscream yelled back, staccato breaths whistling between his clenched denta. “Mech sparks… contract away from foreign contact…” he explained, and Arcee realised her burning hand must have gotten too close to his thin chamber core. “Hurts like the fragging Pit, but... just keep working. Use the forceps to... keep the incision open. I need to... distract myself..."

Arcee reached across to the equipment for the barbed tongs she'd spotted earlier, nudging against the golden T Cog itself and wondering just how she was supposed to jam it inside him. She shook her helm, pushing the doubt aside for when it would be needed, and grimaced as she inserted the forceps into the left side of the bleeding cut. As she worked, Starscream hummed past his gasping vocaliser; some sort of melody she didn't recognise but would have enjoyed hearing back on Cybertron. The lilt was only interrupted by another set of pained instructions and an occasional rumbling groan as his nodes rebelled against being lacerated and stretched. 

After the stress of preparing his internals for accepting the transplant, actually setting the cog inside him was graciously simple. All it took was putting it in the right place, and making sure her energon-coated digits didn't slip. The organ fit perfectly into its once-empty space, and Starscream sigh was a shudder of relief.Arcee pulled her hand out, the energon covering it already drying in the cold air of the ship, and noticed the Seeker’s spark had settled in a strange state of ebbing calm.

“What was that tune you were humming?” she asked, curiosity overriding her own sense of relief as she wiped her servos on one of the ship’s structural supports.

“The last stanza of ‘Daedalus’ Descent’,” Starscream answered, dimming his optics to a dim glow through his lowered lids. “It's a Seeker poem, written some time before the Age of Wrath. Most of it was still lost during the Golden Age.” As if talking had helped relieve the aftershocks of pain still rooted in his systems, he managed to prop himself up on his elbows and start closing his chest plates back over.

"Shouldn't you patch the wound up first?" Arcee asked, flicking the last of the fluid off of her digits.

Starscream shook his helm wearily. "No, no, I have a nickel allergy, and field kits are full of the damn stuff... an internal wound won't get infected, anyway." His plating shuddered back into place, and he fingered the armour seams to make sure they were as sealed as they looked. "Arcee... never become a medic,” he pleaded.

She scoffed, almost wishing she'd just pried that beautiful spark of his out. “You're still alive, aren't you?” she pointed out.

Starscream unclenched his denta so he could smirk at her. “True… at least you didn't try to carve my fuel pump out to sell on the black market, like a certain red doctor once did.”

“A thank you would be nice as well,” she muttered, folding her servos over her chest as the Seeker pushed himself back onto his shaky peds and prodded around the spot where his new cog resided. He stared sidelong at her, regaining slow control over his vents with limp wings and an indecipherable expression.

“...Thank you, then,” he eventually huffed.


	5. Chapter 5

"So what now?" Arcee asked, folding her legs together close to her body while Starscream kept himself propped up with a table at his back, almost sitting on the surface.

"It will take a few solar cycles at least for my internals to fully heal, but we don't have any time to waste. A breem or two should be enough to allow the new cog to settle," he said weakly, still clenching his denta as the shock of surgery had yet to fade. His claws rubbed over the left side of his abdominal cables, as if he could feel his new cog nestled underneath. "Assuming you even put it in correctly," he added in a skeptical mutter.

"Y'know, it would have been easier if you'd taken these damn shackles off beforehand," Arcee pointed out, shaking one of her bulky wrists at him.

Starscream just snorted at her, somehow making her feel inferior even when he looked five klicks away from going into stasis lock. "Easier for you to slip away, you mean. You managed it, anyway. Even with the spark incident..." His wings drooped as a tremor must have shook through them. "Usually whenever there's an operation near the chamber, the medic has to run an electric current through their digits, depending on whether they're operating on a mech or femme. It keeps the spark repelled from their hands."

That made enough sense to Arcee- the magnetic field of femme sparks were positively charged while mechs were negative. The rule of opposites attracting were what made bonding two sparks together possible. 

But Starscream wasn't done speaking. “On the subject of sparks... you’re bond-born, aren’t you?”

Arcee tensed, intakes hissing and backstrut snapping straight. It was hardly a malicious observation, but that didn't mean she was comfortable with it. “How can you tell?” She couldn't tell if she managed to keep her voice steady and free of snarls, as Starscream's expression refused to budge under the veil of superiority that somehow remained permanently fixed over it.

“Your winglets," he answered, with a nod toward the rigid flares from her back. "Bots only get them from having a Seeker parent-”

"And Seekers can't be made from the Well," she finished, as her body relaxed as much as it could while placed opposite a murderer. "That means _you're_ bond-born as well."

Starscream nodded once, a proud flick of his helm. “Both my sire and carrier were of noble castes- Windscythe and Cloudchaser. He was Winglord of Vos, she was a lower noble in the Iacon Council. Through them it wasn’t hard to gain the position of Senator by my fiftieth sparkday." He shrugged, as if it really was as easy as he put out, and Arcee had spent so long used to Earth time that she almost forgot five decades on Golden Age Cybertron was only like five years to humans. "What about you, two-wheeler? Sire was a cleaning drone and carrier a Praxian escort who fell hopelessly in love with each other?”

Again Arcee's intakes were thin and whistling, and her digits scraped together as they formed a pair of fists. She had to stop imagining slamming his denta into the edges of his cursed smirk before she could speak. “...Actually, my carrier was a prostitute. In Vos.”

That revelation made him falter so spectacularly that she almost laughed at how quickly his wings fluttered, like a startled hummingbird's fighting against a hurricane. “Oh... I-uh...”

“Not only that, but my sire was some Seeker, probably noble, who didn’t bother to use his firewalls," she added in the midst of his unprepared stuttering. 

He managed to silence his vocaliser, growling softly instead. "I see."

Arcee wasn't sure what he was thinking of her behind that steel mask, blank as a drone's, and she was eager to stop his growling before it started ringing in her audios. "So why the sudden sharing mood, Starscream?" She hadn't expected to learn so much about her kidnapper, but maybe the surgery affected more than just his spark. And everything she learnt was something the Autobots could use against him when the time came.

"Well, I need _something_ to keep me occupied while I wait for this thing to get working," he said, flourishing a set of his talons in emphasis while the other tapped over his hidden T Cog.

"Don't you ever recharge?" she asked, almost expecting a no and some long winded boast on how Seekers could sleep on their peds.

That wasn't what he answered with, but it would have unsettled her a lot less. "I'll have time to recharge when I'm leading the Decepticons."

She blinked, not expecting such conviction even after his speeches before about stabbing Megatron in the back. Either he was in stubborn denial, or there was something he wasn't telling her about his 'plan', something that would secure its success. In either case, she decided to humour him if only for her own private mockery. "Since you're so confident you'll get to Megatron this time, what's stopping someone else from doing the exact same thing to you?"

"The fact that smart bots do not belong in the Decepticons," he drawled, as if it was painfully obvious. "Megatron doesn't want thinkers unless he can manipulate them, like Shockwave, or unless they're too enamored with the sight of energon to have any thoughts of treason. Knockout makes a good example of that. Without a distraction they're dangerous to him, because they're the only ones capable of seeing right through the slag he built his empire on."

"You mean _you're_ dangerous," Arcee suggested, and Starscream actually looked flattered that she'd worked out he was talking about himself. 

"And Megatron knows it. All these centuries, he was always faced with two choices. Keep me nearby, knowing I would do everything in my power to kill him, but able to have a constant optic on me- or fling me away as far as possible and hope that I eventually perished. The former didn't work, so now he's trying the latter." He raised two digits for each notion and closed them over as he said them. "Though I speak of myself mostly, your Optimus- despite his unbearable altruism- was a smart one. That's why the Council tried to get him killed by sending him off after the Matrix. They never thought he'd actually find it."

Arcee raised an eyeridge. Either he was lying or just showing off how deep his processor was. "And how do you know that?"

"I was in the Council chamber when they received him- and Megatron," he revealed with wings almost lifted up by his own ego. "Technically I wasn't _supposed_ to be, since I wasn't part of the thirteen Guildmasters, but they'd never look up for any eavesdroppers hovering about." Then his wings dropped, as if his cables had been plucked out. Though he kept his faceplate bowed, the glow of his optics was much dimmer than before. "Yes, I saw them both... they _thought_ they were smart for seeing how corrupt Cybertron was, but as soon as Megatron opened that wretched vocaliser of his, that was my life doomed. The whole Council collapsed when he brought his war upon us. All my power, my friends... all gone like smoke. I had nothing left by the end of it. Can you believe he even took my sister, Slipstream, as his consort? They ended up hating each other within vorns, yet even in his berth she never lifted a talon to get rid of him." A tiny laugh got free of his vocaliser when he shook his helm, sadder than any tears he might have shed.

Arcee was silent on her perch, sorting through the flood of information and trying to fit the new pieces in with what she already knew. Which concerning Starscream was... nothing. She really had no choice but to take him at his word. In other circumstances she would have kicked him while he was already down, launching at any chance to whittle his colossal ego down. But with so much weighing her processor down, it didn't feel right- both as an Autobot and as anyone with a functioning spark. 

And anyway, she still had one question left unanswered.

"Starscream?"

The Seeker had been staring at his peds for the past few nanoklicks, and he raised his helm back up towards her. "Hm?"

"If you hate Megatron enough to kill him, why join him in the first place? Why wait so long serving someone you know is a monster, just for any chance to get rid of him?"

Another clutch of nanoklicks spent studying the floor before he answered. "...Because Autobots are not the only ones who have suffered because of him." When Starscream inhaled, the air seemed to scrape against his vents as if they were choked with rust. "I'm sure you know... Seekers traditionally come in groups of three. Brothers and sisters joined by spark. What most don't know is that Megatron was not born as a Seeker. He didn't have a single aerial part on his damn frame before..." His vocaliser cracked suddenly. He had to take in a heavy vent and blink his optics before continuing. "Before he _re-purposed_ my brothers."

Arcee took in all the signs slowly, and meaning soon hit her like an arc of electricity volting up her spinal strut. "He... killed them just for their T Cogs?"

He nodded when talking became too painful. Arcee spent so long just watching him flooded with grief, and with no idea of what to do with it, that she soon realised he wouldn't be saying anything else without some prompting.

"You know I'm no medic, but... how would that even work? A Seeker cog wouldn't even fit inside a grounder frame," she said, having seen a cog for herself and felt its weight in her digits.

Starscream shivered, wings practically dangling off their joints, but he managed to look at her with surprisingly clear optics. "How do you think Knockout ended up earning his place by Megatron's side?"

Arcee nodded in understanding, not sure of what else she could have done. Starscream was unpredictable enough in a clear state of mind- with something as deep as grief clouding him, the slightest wrong tone could make him downright deadly. So she tread carefully, with a low voice. "What were their names?"

He knew she meant his brothers, and his digits scraped as the tips clawed into the table at his back. The solid reality he carved against seemed to help ground him. "Thundercracker, and Skywarp."

"He killed them both, and you still followed him all the way here?"

"It's more complicated than that, Arcee." Though he was annoyed, he sounded too weary to put much effort into his snarl. "Other than Slipstream- and Primus only knows wherever she is- I'm the sole survivor of my bloodline, and it is my duty to keep it alive. If not for that, I would have happily given my spark to send Megatron's to the Pit. Not only that... he still has their sparks. Like _trophies_ of my obedience to him. I swore I would retrieve them before I joined them in the Allspark.” By the time he let go of the table, he'd almost scarred halfway right through the veneer, and he brushed the metal shavings off his talons with an intense, hooded look at Arcee. “I may not be a fan of Optimus Prime, but I am even less one of Megatron."

Then he exhaled, and the heavy sorrow draped over him seemed to rush out all at once. The smug facade had reasserted itself, even if his wings didn't quite manage to keep themselves aloft. "Now let me ask you something, two-wheeler. Something personal."

It was only fair, Arcee reasoned, but her EM field still bristled with suspicion. "Alright."

Starscream straightened first, folding his servos over, and kept his mouth open while he thought of how best to put it forward. She wasn't quite sure what to expect, and in the end she would never have guessed it anyway. "How did you love Cliffjumper?" he finally asked. "As a friend, a partner, or... something more?"

So many things prickled in Arcee's sensors and made energon rush in a flood to her faceplate that it took some nanoklicks before she remembered to be angry. "I don't see why that should be any of your business," she snapped with winglets flaring threateningly, though that only made him chuckle in a sardonic kind of amusement. 

"Something more, then," he assumed. "In that case, your... pain when he perished makes much more sense. After all, I... felt the same twice." His claws settled over his chest, spreading over the pulse of his spark.

Arcee wasn't about to wait for some kind of overdue apology from him, if he even intended to give one. "So you want to kill Megatron twice as much as I want to kill you."

He smiled at her reasoning, though it wasn't as wide as it should have been. The sadness was still masking him. "I suppose so."

If he really did feel the same soul-ripping agony as Arcee did, feeling the sparks he was linked to die out of existence, then he was holding himself together remarkably well. "You must have loved your brothers a lot," she said quietly.

"Alive, they were both distinct pains in my neck and aft," he mused, with the reflection of one who missed every memory of them, good or bad. "They couldn't even die without taking some of my spark with them. But... no matter. Even if their sparks are in Megatron's claws, their spirits are safe in Daedalus' fold now."

It was the second time she'd heard that name, and curiosity overrided everything else in her mind. "Who's Daedalus?"

Starscream seemed to debate over what to say before shrugging. "A long story from long ago." He shoved himself off the table, hitting the floor with dual heel clicks and a tired grunt as he returned to his post deeper in the lab ahead of them. "Stick around and I might tell you about it."

That almost tempted her away from thoughts of escape, yet she still glanced behind him, at the only exit she could see.


	6. Chapter 6

"Okay, this time... one, two, THREE!" Starscream's wings almost popped out of their joints from how he strained them, either working his cog way beyond what was necessary or just pretending he was. Arcee hadn't been able to tell between either of them the whole time she watched, cataloging all the absurd ways his faceplate managed to twist itself. She might have laughed if she wasn't certain he'd find a way to blame his cowardice on her.

After a particularly exhaustive attempt, Starscream ended up on his aft as his legs seemed to throw themselves out from underneath him. Yet he was grinning even as dust billowed up around him. "Ah! I-I felt the legs shifting! It's working!" 

"I'm practically beaming pride for you, Starscream," Arcee intoned, while he scrambled back onto his tottering heels and flashed a habitual glare at her.

"If you're going to act like that, I can easily just have you chained up again!" he threatened, complete with a talon wagging at her.

"No, you won't. Deep down where you won't admit it, I think you _like_ my company," Arcee said, while her leg dangled off the broken edge of the Harbinger's hull. It was the farthest Starscream had let her out from the bowels of the ship, and for once she didn't feel like pushing the boundary too much just now.

Starscream bared a curled, humming frown. "Better you than another Decepticon, at least..." He turned away before she could make anything more of the confession, and rolled his wing joints one last time before finally managing to snap them parallel to his body, just as the rest of it shifted smoothly into the streamlined form of a jet hovering just above the ground.

"AHAAAA! What did I say, Arcee?! I'm truly unstoppable now!" Though his voice should have faded the higher up his thrusters took him, the gloating shriek managed to soar down and assault Arcee's audios as if he was standing right next to her.

"I dunno about that, I could put a hole in your wings from this distance," she called up, even knowing her blasters were disabled and doubting Starscream could even hear her over his own mad cackles and the rush of his engines pouring white trails behind him, as he traced an intricate airborne sketch over the patchwork blue suspended above. Parts of him seemed to blend into the watercolour splashes of grey and white, his frame rippling in and out of sight like an illusion, or like a ghost flitting between the Allspark and Earth. Arcee had never seen the artistic side to a Seeker's flight, never been lucky enough to attend the annual air shows in Vos and the star skimming displays held to honour coronations, feasts, diplomacy; some births, some deaths, if they were important enough. Watching from leagues below, barely a shadow to the heavens, she actually saw some truth to the stories that Seekers were not creations of Primus; they were born of pure elegance and grace, crafted from the skies to run on clouds and bathe in starlight. 

Is this what Starscream might have been without Megatron's war keeping him chained to the ground? 

The question took such a firm hold of Arcee that she didn't notice it was the first time in days that she'd been left out of his sight; even if she had no idea if he could still see her, there was a relief flooding her nodes that could have only came from an absence of red optics anchored on her. She could practically see the Harbinger's static field wavering in front of her, a flimsy translucent wall between her and the Autobots. Her shackles kept her alt mode from being an option and her hands mostly useless, but she was fast on her peds. If her signal popped up just for a nanoklick, then the other Autobots could easily track her down, ambush Starscream, have him cuffed and caged just as she was.

And then she'd lose possibly her only chance at offlining Megatron. Even if Optimus eventually reached the inevitable point of realisation, where he knew he had no choice but to kill him to end the war once and for all, it would be far too overdue for Arcee to be content with. Megatron reached his expiry a millennia ago, before she was even sparked, and if even Starscream knew that it was a lot simpler to decide where her efforts would be better placed.

Maybe that was why it took her so long to realise that her comm unit was buzzing. With so long since her last message to Optimus, she'd all but forgotten she even had a link to him or anyone else. But she was still in the ship's field... whatever miracle was letting her unit work, she didn't stop to doubt it before answering the familiar frequency demanding her attention.

"Bumblebee, is that you?" If she was expecting some cruel bait of hope by Starscream or a simple equipment glitch, what she got was a frantic run of blips and chirps that she could hardly keep up with deciphering.

" _Arcee?! Primus, we've... we thought you got captured by Decepticons or something! Where are you, what happened?!"_

"Bee, I..." Arcee almost couldn't speak through the weight of her vents, and her mouth hung empty without knowing what to say. He must have been nearby, retracing her last known whereabouts, and that meant Starscream could spot him at any moment. Even if she managed to meet up with him, she didn't have much faith in their chances against a fully functioning Seeker. Squashing her relief, her guilt at having to lie, and outright ignoring a flare of absolute fear at making herself lost so soon after being found, Arcee sighed before speaking. "Listen to me, Bee, I'm fine. I'm not in any danger right now, but you are. Go back to base, tell Optimus and Jack and everyone else that I'm okay, but _do not_ come looking for me again."

This time the stream of beeps was slower, but no less difficult to translate. _"What? Don't be stupid, Arcee, just tell me where you are and I'll get the whole team down to-"_

"No, Bee. Just... trust me, please. Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself."

_"...Are you sure?"_ It was a single sound, a distorted blip that made her want to see Starscream crashing to the ground with his wings melting all around him. 

"Will you go if I say yes?" That was all she was concerned about, getting him as far away from Starscream's sight as possible.

" _Whatever you're doing, Arcee, if you're not finished with it in the next few solar cycles, I'm coming back. And I'm bringing Optimus with me."_ It was hard to tell whether Bumblebee meant it as a threat or a promise, and Arcee didn't have time to choose one. 

"Well, I can't stop you," she said, leaning out just far enough to scan the horizon as her EM field fizzed against that of the ship. There was a grey smudge breaking off from a clump of monochrome clouds, falling like an oversized comet and tearing the sky into two with his descent.

_"...Just be careful,"_ Bee pleaded, as Starscream neared closer with every nanoklick. " _Don't go getting yourself hurt without backup._ " The ambient crackle of Arcee's unit cut off abruptly, replaced with the remains of broken sound barriers catching up with Starscream as he angled to land just inches from where she lounged with all the care of someone who hadn't just cut off her only life-line. Starscream barely looked at her, instead craning his neck behind him as if on lookout. 

"I... think it'd be best if we returned inside now-" he started to suggest, as Arcee straightened her back with winglets flared.

"Because you saw an Autobot nearby?" she interrupted, swinging her legs down to stand on the very edge of the Harbinger's influence. "I know. I sent him away for you."

Starscream blinked, twitched, did just about everything she'd expect to show utter confusion. "You... you did?" 

So he wasn't denying that he saw Bumblebee. "Yeah." Her digits tingled as they almost broke through the ship's static, but they managed to get a firm hold on Starscream's throat anyway. Forcing him towards her, digging fiercely into his cables, she could feel his vents collapsing in on themselves as she hissed in his faceplate. "So you better make fragging sure this plan of yours works, or else you'll have a lot more to worry about than just Megatron turning you into target practice."

Starscream had to take a few seconds to put his optics back in their sockets, to stop gulping down cold air as his fans kicked into an overdrive only mortal fear would have induced. Talons cut into the servo almost choking him, but her shackles shielded her wrists. "It. Will. Work. I promise you," he stated slowly, pressing his optics into crimson slits as he pushed Arcee's hand away. She'd already made her servo go limp, with no intention to keep Starscream any closer to her than absolutely necessary. 

"...Don't you want to keep flying?" she asked, while the Seeker carefully rubbed at his neck supports.

"Why should that concern you?" he growled.

She had to stop herself from admitting how beautiful he looked in the sky. "...Because if you're up there, you're not down here annoying me. Besides, you know I won't try to leave now."

Despite everything, that made him smile. "A fair point, two-wheeler."

As he took off again, a swarm moulded into one body that treated the endless sky like a stage and his home all at once, Arcee was muttering to herself. "Primus, if you didn't create him, then why the Pit do you let him live?"


	7. Chapter 7

According to her chronometer, Arcee had only been in Starscream's custody for three solar cycles. But either it was broken or boredom made the breems stretch out longer than they looked, and she was left itching to go after Megatron all by herself and get the suicide mission over with. With little else to do but carve her digits down to their skeletal mesh, she ended up watching her captor like a wild animal pacing its cage, and was forced to notice several things about him that most Decepticons would have most likely glossed over. For one thing, his wings had a very fixed pattern of twitching and subtle sweeps that could give away whatever he was feeling whole klicks before the rest of his body caught up. He often muttered while they fluttered up and down on their hinges, like a butterfly testing a wind current. He scratched at the plate on his chin whenever he was frustrated by something only he could see, with growls dripping down his claws. 

And after a day of regaining flight, rolling over Primus-knows what in his lab and almost being decapitated by his prisoner, he got very greedy with his energon. Though her own tanks rang hollow, Arcee could only swirl the fluid in her cube. "Something about you is still bothering me," she admitted, and for once it wasn't Cliffjumper's ghost hovering over her shoulder or the magnetic pull of smudged grey morality tearing at the poles of her spark. It wasn't even the startling normality of sharing a meal with him. 

Whether or not Starscream knew that, he quirked an eyeridge at her anyway in a grand gesture to go on while he was noisily slurping up the rest of his own cube.

“Megatron knew right from the start that you were a sneaky glitch," Arcee started, and Starscream spluttered on his drink at the accusation they both knew was true. "He knew you'd be out to get him at every chance, that he'd be looking over his shoulder for as long as you were alive. So how did you of all bots end up as his second in command?”

Starscream wiped away the faint cyan trails dripping down his chin, but he didn't scratch at the small ridge just under his smug smile. “I never expected to get as far as I did, but it was a pleasant outcome," he confessed, setting his empty cube down next to the other two he'd managed to drain dry. "I joined the Decepticons with the intention to make their leader answer for what he did to me. So at first, I played along. Like everyone else, I acted like a good, loyal soldier. But there's really no such thing as a loyal Decepticon. They either do it for bloodlust, for money, or because they just have nothing better to do. Under Megatron, the Decepticons are really no better than an army of mercenaries. I aim to fix that." 

While Arcee was playing his answer back over in her mind with helm bowed low, his lofty wings fanned downwards with his optics narrowing an inch. "You know, if you're going to recharge, I'll have to chain you up again," he said, leaving Arcee to wonder if he'd actually follow through this time or if he knew better than to put his claws anywhere near her frame while it was still walking. 

"You look like you're gonna nod off first," she bit back. He could flaunt his wings all he wanted, but they couldn't hide the dull sheen of exhaustion over his optics. For all she knew he hadn't recharged once since her capture. 

Starscream blinked, only hiding the sheen for a nanoklick, and his scoff was like rust flakes caught in his vocaliser. "Considering I know I'll wake up with something slashing my throat, not fragging likely."

"Weren't you the one saying we needed to trust each other?" Arcee asked, cocking an eyeridge and her helm at him. 

Another smile cracked his faceplate, but of a whole different breed from the usual obnoxious jagged hole that carved through his expression like a canyon. It was like something that managed to scale the canyon walls and crawl into daylight. "After today... I think I _do_ trust you, Arcee. Because you've finally managed to push aside all personal grudges, all quaint thoughts of murder in your pretty little spark, for the greater good of a universe without Megatron."

Arcee might have agreed if his tone didn't ooze that of a senator- though put like that, it suited him. "That coming from the mech whose whole motivation is revenge?" she asked, expecting another splutter and a stream of Vosian insults. But the energon must have left him dazed or he didn't see defending his honour worth the effort. He just shrugged, somehow effortlessly with those massive slabs bolted on his shoulders. For all Seekers liked to pride themselves on flight, their wings looked more a burden than anything else.

"I tend not to follow my own advice," he admitted. "Call it a character flaw."

So the almighty Starscream actually acknowledged that he was a hypocritical aft, even if it was with a pathetically oversimplified excuse. "Is that how you see yourself? 'Flawed'?"

Another shrug, and she thought he actually saw him struggle with it. "Not even Primus is perfect; he had to make thirteen of himself to survive, didn't he?"

Arcee wasn't zealous about being dragged into a philosophical debate she knew she'd already lost. Instead she just took her first sip of energon, sighing contently as the cold liquid trickled down her throat. "And apparently he wasn't smart enough to give the rest of us wings..."

Starscream crooked an eyeridge, optics wide under both of them as they gave her a surprised stare. "You know about that, hm? Yet you had to ask who Daedalus was?"

The underlying chuckle lurking in his vocaliser almost made Arcee haul him forwards for a glance against the sharpest points of her digits. "I remember it well enough without that tone," she snapped, and the chuckle bloomed forth like an ivy flower at her offense.

"I suppose I shouldn't expect you to know much of Seeker religion, anyway." Still drinking her energon down, Arcee gave him a slightly confused, more curious glance at the mention of religion.

"Never thought you'd be the preachy type," she said, though with everything else that scarred his character it wouldn't have surprised her. Thankfully he only scoffed again.

"Please, you don't know 'preachy' until you've spent a day in Sunstorm's company." Whoever Sunstorm was, the thought of him made Starscream's shoulders tense.

"I know about Primus and which Prime I'd want to save my aft in a firefight. That's all I need to know," Arcee added, out of some kind of defense for her knowledge. If not for a war skewing her priorities solely on survival and little else, she might have had some more interests outside of which weapons fired best or how to avoid detection from drone squadrons. 

Starscream either found it amusing or pitiful, or a combination of both. She couldn't really tell what made him smile like that. "Unfortunately, my kind don't have such simple beliefs," he said.

"So not only do you have a whole city to yourselves, you also have a separate afterlife? The Allspark not shiny enough for you?" Arcee might have been laying her own disdain on rather thickly, but she was too weary to seek out a better target for her contempt. Starscream was hardly bothered by it, anyway.

"I'll spare you an exhaustive lecture, even I'm not cruel enough to kill with boredom," he said through the thin gaps of his smile. It occurred to her that she'd never seen one last so long without morphing into a sneer sooner or later. "We believe in Primus well enough, but we do not worship him as you might because he didn't create us. That honour goes to Daedalus, the first flyer, born eons ago among the first generation after the Thirteen's disappearance. Primus didn't gift him with his wings, rather he created them himself. And he went on to bless other bots with them, those he deemed worthy with the help of Iradex and Felidex- his brothers, and trinemates."

Arcee was listening more intently than she first intended, and a question floating across her processor very quickly ended up out of her mouth. "If they're his brothers, isn't that a little biased?"

Rather than scowl at the interruption, Starscream's closed his optics with a wider smile. "And you have just stumbled onto one of the fundamental pillars of being a Seeker," he told her, bringing a leg up to his chest while the other stayed stretched out between them. "Trines exist because it is believed that no one bot can truly live a just life by themself, not without conflicting personalities existing to balance their spark. That being said, trines must be formed with great consideration. It's not a matter of simply choosing whoever is closest; though, I was lucky with my brothers. Daedalus, however... well, Felidex and Iradex, their personalities were so extreme that one attempted to murder the other. Daedalus managed to separate them, reducing them both to only their sparks and chaining them in orbit around his own. After that they became known as Iapetus and Hyperion, the dispensers of punishment and mercy respectively." Starscream sighed, as if storytelling exhausted his vocaliser even with his optics glowing brighter the deeper he delved into the tale. Even Arcee couldn't help being wrapped in his words; picturing what the first Seeker must have looked like, the pride over crafting the first wings in the universe, the anguish over his brothers betraying each other, the sad obligation of having to strip them of their bodies. 

Something about that image confused her though, but Starscream saw the question flicker over her faceplate before she could voice it. "Oh, I should have mentioned, Cybertronians had open spark chambers that long ago. The closed chamber design only came into effect after..." He liked to gesture with his claws as he spoke, but now they fell limp to his side as he shrugged. "Well, it's a long, confusing incident that likely never even happened. I doubt you'd be interested."

Though she certainly would be interested Arcee made herself only shrug back at him, tipping back her cube to slurp up the rest of the dregs. "Try me. I could use a goodnight story."

Starscream grinned, and for a nanoklick his optics were like red supernovas. "Very well." And so followed ancient stories weaving into each other, each one flowing into the next; Daedalus' two winged children Icarus and Astraea, the love he had for his daughter and the jealousy Icarus harboured towards his sister, how Astraea's uncontained spark was so bright and imbued with her sire's powers that she became unable to control it, and the energy almost consumed her entirely. After that, Daedalus gave each of his creations closed off spark chambers instead, though none came to match Astraea for her ambition and joy prior to her imprisonment.

And then myths became as twisted as a Crystal Conundrum Cube. Through some sort of means, both Hyperion and Iapetus died and Daedalus' emotions became unbalanced. Seeing how truly miserable his daughter was, he released her from her chains before tearing his own open spark out. Some say Icarus murdered his sister believing she was the cause of their sire's death, others say an entirely different bot was the culprit.

"What do you think then, Screamer?" Arcee asked, numb to the stiff ache in her joints as she sat letting the orchestrated epic pour over her. "Who killed the sky princess?"

Starscream was on his fourth cube now, and he spluttered past a bubble of laughter. "Honestly? I don't think it matters. Whoever did it, whatever their motives were, doesn't change the fact that she died. It doesn't alter the aftermath. She would have met her end regardless, and you'd be here asking me about something completely different but equally as inconsequential."

As she contemplated his logic, a passing thought stuck a knife through her spark on its way to freezing her vocaliser. "...Would I be asking you about why you killed Cliffjumper?"

The air turned to stone, and Starscream's wings hung like limp tablets gouging the floor. His optics creased, flickered, did everything to avoid meeting hers for a long few nanoklicks before he finally relented to her gaze. It was like he was thrown at the peds of Hyperion and Iapetus themselves, and all he had to defend himself with was a glossa left heavy with lead guilt. "I won't give you some sugar coated slice of the truth, Arcee. I honestly don't quite know why I did," he said slowly, each low word punctuated with a sigh. "I'm sure I had my motives all in check at the time, and I saw a stream of nothing but good to come from offing an Autobot. With Megatron's return constantly on the horizon... I had no idea what to expect from him. I suppose I saw killing an Autobot as an insurance policy, proof that I had some use left if he was in the mind to finally get rid of me. That is quite pathetic, isn't it? The old mantra of kill or be killed?" He tried to smile and lighten his tone, but failed miserably at both. 

"Whether or not you choose to believe this, Arcee... I am sorry that I killed him. I let fear of Megatron control me so much that... I thought acting like him would protect me. But it seems Megatron himself is the only one who can take lives without taking the consequences as well."

Rather than just listening to the wavering remorse in his voice, Arcee was studying him again. And no matter how hard she looked, flicking to each subtle shudder and quiver in his frame, diving into his pooled irises, she couldn't find any sign that he was lying. Her optics were soon too blurry to see out of, and she turned her helm away so he couldn't see her blinking the build-up of coolant away. But the croak rattling in her vocaliser gave the sadness away. "Whether or not you actually mean that... thank you." 

Starscream nodded once with his mouth in a hard underscore, uncomfortably flexing his claws as he let the empty cube in his hand fall with a dull clatter. "No more energon for you?" he asked, and it seemed the concern was only to cover the hollow shell that remained of his pride.

Despite everything, including the fatigue starting to creep damp into her nodes, Arcee felt her lips twitch. "Not unless you have another story to keep me awake for," she said, and her optic lids were already sliding over the thin films of coolant fracturing the light from her lenses. She saw a ghost of Starscream's former smile return just before it was lost in black, and heard something she might have slapped him for if her servos had any feeling left in them, and if she could still remember it when she woke up.

"I know one you might like. There are some legends that say Daedalus had a third optic in the center of his forehelm, where he received visions from Primus. It's why crests like yours are quite... attractive among us..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Nitro did you just use this entire chapter as an excuse to vomit out your weird Seeker religion headcanon-" hey shush ya mouth before I call the cops.


	8. Chapter 8

It was a click that woke her up, and a sudden lightness on her wrists that chased haziness away. "What... what are you doing?" She sounded groggier than she'd have liked to be, but she was more rested than she ever remembered being. So it didn't make a lot of sense to her that Starscream was taking her cuffs off.

"Isn't it obvious? I'm letting you go," the Seeker said, throwing the deactivated shackles aside. Though her wrists were stinging from so long spent chafing against metal, she couldn't even stand up from confusion and shock rooting her to the cold floor.

"But... w-what about all that stuff about needing a second bot? Someone to distract Megatron?" She wouldn't have put it past Starscream to have a plethora of back up plans in mind, but his primary one obviously involved her. What had suddenly made her disposable overnight?

Starscream seemed to be reluctant to share the answer, but he seemed to tire of her giving him a searching glare. "I've been thinking, Arcee," he began. "While you've been recharging, I've been thinking... quite a lot. We both have our own reasons for killing Megatron. I won't hold you to following mine. Think of this as an... insurance policy. If I fail, at least you'll still be alive to take your own chance at him. So... you're free to leave. Tell the Autobots what happened, take it to your grave, I don't really care. Just don't get in my way." He waved his claws in a throwaway fan as if it would make the dismissal any less awkward. 

Arcee was halfway to accepting that everything was as it looked, that Starscream was genuinely just letting her slip away, but that still left a hefty amount of disbelief in her processor. "How do I know this isn't just a way for you to follow me back to my base?" she asked, rubbing the ache slowly out of her scuffed wrists and finding her weapons still disabled. 

Starscream was strolling away towards his lab but he turned to scoff at her, offended that she'd even suggest such an obvious deception. "Please, if I really cared about where your friends hole themselves up, I would have spent the past few days torturing it out of you." That certainly would have fit his usual methods. And if he was as intent on offlining Megatron as he had her convinced, he wouldn't waste the effort of finding their base to use as a bargaining chip for regaining his place in the Decepticons.

Everything more or less checked out, even the uncharacteristically generous notion of keeping her alive to take the glory of killing Megatron in the future, yet Arcee still couldn't make herself leave. Starscream almost jumped in surprise when he turned around and saw she was still sitting there. "Well, what are you waiting for? A kiss farewell?" he asked sarcastically, though it occurred to her that she wouldn't have minded one as much as she should have. 

She shook her helm while pulling herself to her peds, more to get the mental image out. "I... guess I should wish you good luck or something."

"I won't need it," Starscream assured, lofty wings asserting that his confidence was more than just from denial. "But... you might need more than just luck." There was a hiss of locks unlatching and air escaping a chamber, and his hand appeared holding a vial with a sliver of red energon at the bottom of it. Arcee blinked at it, trying to find some kind of tracking or explosive device on the container, but Starscream just shook it impatiently at her. “Go on, take it. Use it for an emergency or something, whatever you Autobots do with your trinkets.” She still took a few nanoklicks to retrieve it, brushing digits against his claws as she turned the vial over in her hands. Red energon was his most precious resource, and he was just giving away a portion of it to her. Gratitude only barely outweighed her suspicion, and she slipped it into her subspace before he could change his mind.

“Before I go… will you tell what you're gonna do up there without me?" she asked. A few days ago she'd have happily took her leave and left him to rust on whatever half-boiled plan he had waiting in the dark of his processor, but with everything that happened in those days... it didn't feel right leaving without making sure he wouldn't get himself killed in a nanoklick. 

"You mean other than right a millennia worth of wrongs?" Starscream smirked to himself, a surprisingly sad sight on him in the dim morning light filtering through the cracks of the Harbinger's hull. He motioned toward the hollow corpse of his twin still dangling from a chain on the other side of the lab. "I’ve fitted my clone with a tracking device as well as a small explosive- too small to be detected easily, but enough to cause damage in a close enough range. I’ll use the body as a decoy. It'll be brought on board the Nemesis, as proof to Megatron of my demise, and the distraction combined with red energon should give me enough time to get onboard and slaughter him. He’ll be killed while looking over my corpse. Quite ironic, isn't it?" He tried to bolster his smirk at the thought, but again the expression was dampened by something too much like regret. Arcee tried to not think too much about it by looking for holes in his words.

“You tried to kill him with five clones before, and he saw that one get away. Won't he suspect it's a trick?” she pointed out.

“Of course he will, but he'll be too enraptured with my death to be too cautious about it. In any case, you're not changing my mind. I'm going alone from now on. And the sooner you get back to your Autobots, the better." He seemed to think that he could just forget about her if he turned his back on her, wings forming a barrier that hid his faceplate. 

"After all this, you're really just throwing me aside?" she asked, much more softly than she'd meant to. He could have easily ignored her, unless he had his audios tuned to her.

“You actually sound disappointed," he said, and whatever he was trying to focus on instead of her stopped him from hearing her stomping up to him, grabbing for a wing and whirling him around to face her. 

“You're damn right I am! You actually got me believing some of that slag about… making the Decepticons more than just an army, and… about a chance at peace! For both of us... despite all the slag that's happened.” She'd been pounding on his chest and flailing her servos, as dramatic as he was, without even noticing. As usual the fury was only a fleeting flash in her spark, and when it was all gone her digits could only slide harmlessly down his chestplate with her helm bowed. Her glossa burned as she held back the crucial confession tripping over it, that she was starting to see tiny hints of Cliffjumper in him, so slight that she kept doubting they were even there.

Starscream was silent after her outburst, and she watched his claws near her numb hands. They were infinitely, scary gentle as they touched her digits, not so much holding them as simply supporting them. “Just go, Arcee. Please," he whispered. So quiet, his usual rasp had all but disappeared from his vocaliser. "If you only trust me once in your life, make it right now.” He let go, and her hands fell slowly to her sides. She was holding back tears for something not even worth shedding them over, and they only went away when she looked ahead at the open air waiting for her at the other end of the ship. Home was on the other side of it, friends and safety. Yet all she wanted was to find Megatron and throw his spark to the Pit. 

If Starscream was right... if she was willing to trust him, then she'd have her chance one day. And the odds would be much more in favour than his. "...Goodbye, Starscream." Arcee didn't know what was sadder, how pitifully low his wings were or the smile he tried to bare for her. She was walking past him, peds automatically gliding towards freedom else her spark tie her any longer to her prison. There were no parting words, no snide quip or even a hum to keep her company on the way out. Just her own helm buzzing and her spark trying to blank itself of emotion. The echo of peds on metal faded to steps on dirt as she entered the calm outside. The morning was dull, the sky infested with clouds with no hint of sunlight breaking through. How fitting. 

Since she had nothing to guide her towards the Autobots, she just headed to where she saw Bumblebee and hoped his tracks would still be there. She was in luck, no rain or wind had disturbed the distinctive imprint of his ped. But it was only then, several leagues from the Harbinger's wreck, that she realised Starscream hadn't removed her wheel clamps, and she was far too stubborn to go trotting back to him for the key. Walking or driving, it didn't matter to her. She'd get home either way.

No comms, no alt mode, no hope of a rescue operation until another few days if Bumblebee kept his word... but her spark signal should be online now, outside of the ship's static field. All she had to do was wait to be found... and keep moving so she didn't get rust from boredom. 

Ten klicks passed with dust and grit clogging her wheels and gears, her peds kicking aside every rock she came across, when the sky got much darker. A bloated patch of shadow moved across the clouds, a storm or an round of thunder-

Or the Nemesis, judging from the Vehicons gliding down towards her. 

_'Starscream, you fragging piece of-'_ She didn't get to finish the thought before something slammed down on her helm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if Starscream seemed OOC in being kind to Arcee and letting her go free, now we know it's just an extension of him being a slippery bastard.   
> You really know how to pick 'em, Cee.


	9. Chapter 9

As the black of stasis faded and colour started to sting her optics, the only difference Arcee noticed between being captured by Starscream and by the Decepticons is that the Decepticons at least didn't make her sit on the floor. With the strength that trickled back into her limbs she pushed and wrenched against the now familiar restraints on her wrists and new ones on her legs, squirming on the cold slab of metal at her back that squashed her winglets under her frame. 

Standing some way aside over a table of Primus-knows what kind of equipment, Knockout heard her thrashing and grunting but only acknowledged it with the slightest flick of his helm. She was on the verge of snapping her servos off by the time he decided to speak, lazily calling over his shoulder. 

"You know, this whole time Megatron has been trying to get you where you live, wasting thousands of hours combing the planet for any trace of Autobots, but you're kind enough to just hand yourself over!" He chuckled as he turned around, a smug grate of his vents that made Arcee hiss- or maybe that was the sight of the cable dangling in his hand like a dormant viper, the same one she'd used on Bumblebee what seemed like years ago. 

"Unfortunately, I can't bear to waste such a pretty frame on wild experiments, but I _can_ take a look inside your helm." The Cortical Psychic Patch buzzed and hummed in his grip, as if responding to his growing smirk and the panic taking firm hold of Arcee's systems. Her processor, any Autobot's head, held everything needed for just one Decepticon to destroy them from the inside. And that wasn't even considering her time with Starscream, nevermind what she knew of what he was planning. The only moments of privacy and- dare she admit it- peace she'd had left in the midst of the new war, of Cliffjumper's demise, had been spent in that slagger's company. The same one who'd more likely than not left her as Decepticon bait. The prospect of those moments being dissected, torn apart and sifted through, that scared her more than anything else. 

And Knockout could sense it the closer he approached, the glitching static of her EM field laying bare the depth of her fear and anger and that bitter, neverending chasm of betrayal that she ended up falling back into every time she managed to drag herself out. Him in her mind, mocking her for any hope and happiness she had, cutting deeper than Starscream's claws or words ever could, would have surely destroyed her, as much as she hated to know it. 

But Autobots tended to have good timing, and once where Knockout stood proud and preening lay a crumpled mess of red plating a nanoklick later, with a yellow mech towering over him.

"Bumblebee!" He whirred in acknowledgement, dusting off the fist he'd just slammed into the back of Knockout's helm and stubbornly stepping on him as he approached Arcee's restraints. "How... how did you-"

" _I got a little impatient with our whole 'three days' deal, but I saw the drones lifting you up when I went to find you. I got the whole team to help storm the ship to get you out._ " He managed to find the release for all her restraints, the stasis cuffs fizzling out and letting her rub the half-healed chafes in her wrists.

"Where's everyone else?" she asked, quickly ridding herself of shakes as she sat up, cautiously eyeing the groaning shape of Knockout on the floor.

_"They're keeping this place secure,"_ Bee answered, a ped pressed on the downed medic's neck just in case. _"As soon as the coast is clear, we'll call in a Ground Bridge and get you back to base-"_

But Arcee stopped listening at that point, when she saw the faintest smudge of grey and a flint of red streaking over Bumblebee's shoulder. It only lingered for less than a nanoklick, but long enough for her to notice and recognise the very warped image of Starscream before it was gone. The red energon was letting him slip right through every guard on the ship without them knowing- and she still had her own dose in her subspace. 

Rolling the container stored there slowly in her hand, she watched Bumblebee turn around and speak into his comm unit when she made her decision.

"Sorry about this, Bee... but I'm here for a reason." She downed the container before he could turn around and see, sweet electricity soaking her glossa and swelling in her tanks, and when she let go of the empty flask it refused to clatter to the floor. It hovered, descending so slowly it was like trying to swim through air made of oil. And Bee was even slower, the twitch of his doors like a pair of broken wings trying to flap together, his peds rotating on rusty hinges. Everything was a crawl around her, the air itself distilled and laden with a stony silence only occasionally broken by dull, time-softened thuds further away. 

Arcee approached the exit, the same one Bee had used, but the doors took so long to slide apart she had to wrench them aside and spill out into the frozen hallway. Smokescreen and Bulkhead flanked the opening, two tense barriers between the statues of Vehicons up ahead. She weaved between them all without bothering to take them out, saving all strength she had left for the bigger battle ahead.

Then, in the sea of sluggish drones, she saw someone actually managing to run in the hallway before her, heels clicking and heavy low wings forcing him to lean forwards in his stride. 

"Starscream!" He turned quickly, but not so that it was out of surprise. If anything, he seemed to be expecting her.

"I was wondering when you'd catch up," he said, seriously tempting a fist in his faceplate with how his eyeridges waggled. She had one ready as she marched up to him, but her digits twitched too much to hold it by the time she was in range. So she settled for a slap, which he didn't try to dodge. 

"What the... what the _frag_ were you thinking?!" It was one thing to hand her over to the Decepticons in a complete 180 of everything he'd been preaching for the past week, another thing entirely for him to expect her to break out and forgive him for it. 

To what little credit he had, he just calmly rubbed the reddened side of his faceplate as he gave explanation. "I was thinking this was the only way to get you onboard short of guesswork with the Ground Bridge. And that you'd be competent enough to free yourself. I only ever had one plan... which involved you being captured. And if you knew that was the case, it was very unlikely you'd agree to it."

He was right about that, but that didn't make the truth any less infuriating to hear. Never mind it was partly her fault for trying to have faith in a creature whose entire nature was deception, his entire being so distinct from her own that they didn't even follow the same gods. With so much of that boiling in her tanks, she couldn't get much out of her vocaliser other than a stuttered curse. "You... you piece of lying slag!"

The insult was another slap by itself, but Starscream barely flinched from it. "You knew I was one all along, yet you still trusted me when I asked it of you," he reminded her, all but forcing her to accept that yes, she should have expected it, even if it was for the good of the mission. Yet his tone wasn't smug, at least not until he went on to say, "And need I point out that you were the one whining about not getting in on the action." Arcee narrowed her optics at that, the embarrassment of having to plead with him so needlessly rushing to her faceplate, but luckily he was walking away before he could see it.

"Now are we going to stand here arguing until the energon dose wears off, or are we going to go kill a warlord?" It was the most simple question she'd heard in so long, the answer so obvious. And she couldn't help from smiling at how easy Starscream managed to make it sound, if only briefly while his back was turned before she yanked on the tip of his wing to hang him back.

"You ever pull something like that again, I'll stab you with your own wings," she told him, digging her digits into the node-filled metal just to cement the threat in his mind. Though he winced and tottered on his heels, he managed to flash a wobbly smirk back at her.

"If all goes well, I won't need to do it again." Arcee frowned, not sure what to think of the confidence, but she at least let go of him so he could lead the way. He knew where the command center was, after all. 

The way forward through the surge of drones was silent, filled with suspended plasma bursts and wisps of smoke lingering from fresh wounds in the ship's hull. They passed Dreadwing and Optimus engaged in a stand off of sorts, thermal cannon against sword, and had to duck under the weapons to reach the command room ahead.

But while Arcee was all set to surge forward with her weaponry finally recovered, the warm glow of her blasters curing all aches in her servos, Starscream was held back behind the junction in front of the door. He was blinking too much for her to see what was happening in his optics, but the sag of his wings told her everything she needed to know. He was just as terrified as anyone would be, so close to facing off against the monster beyond the thin walls. 

"Arcee..." Though he tried to ward off the shake of his vocaliser, it was still there as clear as the dread glazing his face over.

"You said the doses don't last long, so make it quick," she said, firmly but not unkindly. The energon would be useless if it ran out while his frame was stone. 

"If this does fail... if neither of us come out of there..." He took a deep vent but nothing else came out, and she leaned in just in case his vocaliser had seized up. 

"What is it?" she asked quietly, so focused on the dim glow of his optics that she didn't notice his lips against hers until his eyes closed and their crests touched, his wings soared upwards on their joints to mirror her winglets, and she almost felt herself kissing back just as he pulled away. 

"I'm sorry," was all he said, before forcing past her and charging straight ahead into the devil's den. And she had no choice but to follow, her mouth still alight for reasons she either didn't know, or didn't want to know at that moment.


	10. Chapter 10

After Starscream's little deathwish surprise, Arcee wasn't quite sure what to expect in the belly of Megatron's stronghold, the heart of his war machine and the invincible symbol of just how much the Autobots were outmatched against the Decepticons, but Starscream charging helm first into it at least got the doors open as they sensed his frantic approach. 

And on the bridge over the chasm of empty computer banks, Megatron was suspended in a mad lunge, like he was trying to swim through the air with his claws trying to slice through the frozen fabric of time and carved denta trying to bite something. Starscream had to skid to a stop before he ran right into the trap of talons and the glare of the plasma cannon mounted behind them, heels screeching into the floor as he flinched back from Megatron's grasp. Arcee would have been doubled over in laughter at the surreal sight, if it wasn't aimed right towards her with optics staring through her with a hatred that almost washed over her like lava, and if she wasn't painfully aware that their time limit was running out with every slowly increasing nanoklick.

Once Starscream toppled backwards and recovered from almost spearing himself before the fight even began, he shoved the outstretched servo aside and stared up at Megatron's rage-warped features. "It looks like he was expecting us... or someone." 

Arcee kept back from the frozen warlord partly out of caution, and partly because she wasn't sure if she could be so near Starscream with her lips still tingling. "So what now?" she asked after clearing her vocaliser more times than should have been necessary.

Still standing in Megatron's shadow, Starscream seemed to be stone still in his own kind of frozen realm. Only his wings and claws moved, subtle twitches that only Arcee would have noticed even without red energon almost running out in their tanks. "I... I never thought I'd get this far," he said quietly, almost laughing that he'd proven himself so wrong, right in Megatron's snarling faceplate. And Arcee realised that for all his acid threats and grisly promises, he really had no idea of actually how to go about getting Megatron's spark out. Though she couldn't really fault him, and wasn't sure if she wanted to, since getting close enough to do anything was an achievement in of itself. 

"Can't you just... tear through his chest armour or something?" she asked, half expecting the cavity behind it to just be a hollow space, or a core of dark energon.

Starscream scoffed those thoughts away, though the fists his claws curled into said how much he would have liked to do just that. "If it was as easy as that, he would have died from a stray bullet eons ago. No, the armour's too strong for my claws to get through and rockets are too unpredictable with red energon. But... your sword might work."

"Already on it." Arcee had missed the smooth swish of her blade sliding out her servo plating, nestled in between her blaster components and slicing through the light that caught its edge. She actually believed it could end Megatron's life. "I'd get out the way if I was you."

Starscream did the smartest thing he'd done all week and obliged, hanging backwards as Arcee took her stance and hefted her sword back. She had to take aim quickly, bring the blade down as straight as possible to cut through the seams of Megatron's armour, maybe even right through the panes of his spark chamber and the evil core inside it begging to be torn out... 

But she didn't even get through the first layer of steel before time tore off its shackles. The resurgence of reality was so sudden, so jarring compared to the tranquility of time turned to ice that Arcee hardly dented the armour before her blade skidded harmlessly off the thrumming plates that crashed into her and slammed her backwards against the floor. Her helm screamed and all colours became a blind mess of pain, winglets spasming wildly, and something kicked into her side before falling sideways over her. Megatron recovered quickly from tripping up, turning the fall into a roll that ended with him kneeling and facing her. Confusion and sheer bewilderment was the only thing stopping him from turning where she lay groaning into a patch of charred metal and melted plating.

"What in the name of... how did you get in here?!" He was already aiming at her, claws stretched outwards in a jagged accusation and the humming barrel of his cannon almost blinding her. That was the only reason she closed her optics, in the face of the burning death and failure that would come a nanoklick later by the sound of the plasma leaping out of the gun... but it never reached her. Though she had to squint with every movement causing aching tremors in her battered frame, she saw a circle of ground just to her left burned black and smoking with the dull sludge of residue. But behind it, the source of mad grunting and frantic gasps, was Megatron stumbling back and forth like a puppet on broken strings, barely keeping to the edge of the bridge, with Starscream fastened to his back; wings flattened along his spine, one set of claws lodged into a bleeding spiked shoulder while the other grasped for the cannon and left leagues of scratches along the barrel. Arcee took the chance to roll away, towards where the bridge spanned out into a flat circular platform, where she could force the pain away in cover and let Starscream take the spotlight he so desperately wanted, just for now.

And Megatron's fury, his lagging vents and popping optics were turning the thin air into a furnace. "Get your fragging... filthy Autobot hands off my-!" Something fizzled, something else squealed, and the latter was probably Starscream as he tumbled off Megatron's back, taking half of the main barrel of the cannon down with him. The lethal glow down the center was snuffed out the instant Starscream tore the cannon away from its mount, and he kicked it over the edge of the bridge while flicking his stained claws and meeting Megatron's glare with all the cold calculations flashing across it. From Arcee’s view she couldn't see the warlord’s expression, but the low chuckle from his vocaliser sent rumbling aftershocks through the floor.

"Starscream…” Megatron growled through his vents, a beastformer trapped in gunmetal plating that seemed to swell larger with every breath he took. He tilted his helm towards the spark mass of mangled metal and ripped wires where his weapon used to be, almost amused at losing it so quickly. For now, he seemed to have completely forgotten the Autobot from less than a klick ago, and that suited Arcee just fine with the echoing pound in her helm finally starting to fade. 

Ahead of her, Starscream stood straight and stiff as a monument before Megatron, as if daring him to attack. Arcee saw him struggling so hard not to flinch as Megatron took a single step closer, that one ped almost halving the distance between them. “This isn't like you, actually managing to succeed at something,” the warlord sneered. “Or perhaps you've finally given in and went crawling to the Autobots for help.”

Every word was a barbed taunt, lashing across Starscream’s expression, perhaps because of the half truth it carried and stabbed him with. But the Seeker had wasted enough time standing and talking and wishing instead of doing, so his reply only took the same amount of time he needed to aim a rocket at Megatron's face.

“Oh, just shut up.” He clicked his claw and the air exploded into an inferno with the smoky smell of singed armour. Megatron had ducked sideways of course, just in time for the missile to only clip his servo and impact mostly on the ground. And in the burst of fire, Arcee found the perfect cover to ambush Megatron from. With a smaller frame and no heavy wings, he couldn't just writhe and buck her off like Starscream, especially with her servos wringing his neck and a sword sawing through the thick cables the more he struggled. That wasn't to say it was easy; Arcee’s helmache returned tenfold as the bridge and computers and walls all blurred together into a dizzy mess, and Megatron snarled so intensely she thought his ragged denta would try and chew through her hands if she didn't watch where she put them. Starscream was a cloud of grey and the muffled sound of thrusters, as if he was drowning in red energon, though Arcee was just too focused on holding on to track him. More explosions wracked the air, plumes of heat hitting her face and shrapnel flying like swarms of insects. At some point Megatron's own sword shot out, taller than her whole frame and a razor monolith that could have cleaved her in two if she set one ped on the floor, but just out of reach of her while she had a strangle-clutch his neck.

But the mottle of colours that was Starscream was slowing down, the flares of light less frequent, and her own servos were close to agony from having to stay so tense. Yet Megatron wasn’t even fazed, the tangled miles of cable and muscles bulging under his armour still terrifyingly strong under her, his vocaliser barely hoarse from his endless chorus of roars and stubborn grunts, or from Arcee’s grip.

She had no choice. She had to let go before she fell limp and let Megatron simply trample her. Her sword left a deep groove near his spinal strut as she leapt down, already rolling aside of an anticipated sword strike. But with his freedom regained, Megatron didn't even seem to notice her, not when he could just pluck Starscream out of the air like a butterfly as he came past in his alt mode, not expecting the blade that sliced right through his left wing and emerged out the other side dripping energon. The pain was so sudden, so blindingly intense and nothing like Arcee could even imagine that Starscream’s engine screeched to a halt in mid air, forcing him to hang there and dangle from the sword as his T Cog choked, forcing him into bipedal mode with his faceplate streaked and creased and in an expression Arcee almost recognised from a time she'd tried so hard to forget, Tailgate’s torture. And somehow the panic and stinging ache seizing her spark was worse now than it was back then. A Seeker’s wings were the most precious, most sensitive part of their frame. A thousand node clusters for detecting wind and weather and everything a flyer had to know. And every one of those nodes was on fire if it wasn't spared from the hell by just shutting out altogether.

Screams trickled past what gasps of agony he could voice, every inch of his frame trembling so violently that the sword cut in even deeper, cutting upwards through the wing like a knife dragged across oil, until there was no metal left against the blade and Starscream fell to the floor in a sobbing heap of energon and coolant. Arcee would have already been there to catch him if Megatron didn't stand like a wall between them, one quaking with laughter as he watched Starscream’s energon drip over the bridge edge in a blue waterfall.

"I didn't think it was possible, Starscream, but you've managed to sink _lower_ than rock bottom.” He turned himself slightly to place one optic on Arcee now, daring her to try one last time to tear his helm off but knowing all she could do was glare a thousand death threats at him. Though the scowl that scarred itself into her faceplate, carved by thousands of years of suffering, only made Megatron chuckle more. “Your only friend, a weak Autobot only slightly less pathetic than you. And your only accomplishment, being an example for all that come after you. No one else will dare defy me with _you_ the result of even trying.” 

Starscream managed to control his vents and blinked enough that the coolant stopped flowing from his optics, but his spark pulse was an earthquake against Arcee as she desperately looked from warlord to… her friend? Her teammate… whatever to call someone who made her energon boil and spark burst all at once, another one about to die right in front of her. 

Starscream must have saw it coming just as she did, staring down Megatron's cannon just as he was staring down the infernal glaze of his optics. "Go on, then,” he spat, energon gurgling under his glossa. “Finish the job you started with my brothers."

“Funny that you mention them,” Megatron said under a fringe of laughter, his sword still wet and bright as he hefted it across his chest, pulling back for the final strike. “Despite your name, they screamed _much_ more than you.”

He never heard Arcee retreating, never heard her peds slapping the rumbling floor as she ran up to him and only barely felt the air whistle as she leapt. But he did feel the kick landed right on his spine, the crack of the interlocking plates snapping out. He didn't hit Starscream or even the floor as he fell, too shocked by the impact to rebel against the class on his servo, on his sword, hauling it towards his chest until the tip pierced the thick plating and cleaved it apart as gravity cruelly pulled him down his own blade. 

He knelt, energon pooling underneath with his sword buried so close to his spark chamber, vocaliser clogged and spluttering, his jaw loose and dripping. By contrast Starscream’s was wired with cement between his clenched denta, as he kept hold of Megatron's servo stabbed through his frame despite his lights going dim and every shiver making him want to just lie down and die. 

The warlord wasn't dead yet, not even with the wound draining his tanks in just five nanoklicks of shock, and it would have been so easy to just pull his servo back out of him if it wasn't paralysed, and if Arcee didn't deliver another kick downwards. She slammed her ped down just above where the sword re-emerged, dripping tainted purple-white plasma and dying arcs of electricity on top of the cyan coating down its length. All that was left of Megatron’s spark as it died, the last pulses fizzling in his mouth and behind his optics. 

Then he sagged, falling forwards limp and lifeless like a hollow drone, not even Unicron’s influence lingering on his peeled frame. Arcee still stood over him, certain that if she looked away he'd just rise again as something even deadlier, but… this was it. The death of Megatron, Unicron’s Herald and the catalyst of Cybertron's demise. And they didn't even need a Prime to do it. 

“We actually… we did it?” Her disbelief formed a blank trance over her optics, as she collapsed on her knees despite the slick carpet of energon all around her. Starscream broke it not long later by his ragged vents, hissing curses and laboured groans as he tried to stem the huge scar left open on his wing.

Saying anything would clearly be painful for him, but this was Starscream. Nothing would ever stop him being a smart aft, not even the brink of the Allspark. "That was... much easier than I was expecting."

That exhausted tone coupled with the smirk that wouldn’t go away even now practically forced her into laughing, a rich sound that she wanted to let out forever in the echo of the near deserted room and blood stained bridge underneath them. "Yeah... I've met Minicons who put up a tougher fight," she said in between mad chuckles. They were both lying from the pits of their sparks, but with how much their chambers swelled and simmered with pride and hope, it really didn't matter. 

Though Megatron's corpse still lay between them, Arcee managed to step over the mountain of dead metal as she sat by Starscream's side, adding her own effort to staunching the wound. He was pale, his face somehow thinner than usual, but Arcee couldn't imagine Primus letting him die just now. Not when he'd just about repaid all his debts, and not when she still had answers to get out of him. Or just one that had been robbing her focus ever since he put it in her mind and on her lips.

But it had to remain there, twitching away in her smile lines, as the door so far away hissed open in front of the whole Decepticon army, staring first at the intruders bathed in energon and then at the source, Megatron's body. 

Starscream plopped his heavy helm sideways to watch the shock and mixture of horror and anticipation ripple through officers and drones alike. Before any stray cries could start up, he lifted a servo triumphantly to declare, “Megatron has fallen. I, Starscream now… lead the Decep…” His words trailed off into a garbled mess, and Arcee finally got to be on the other side of an unwanted stasis lock. Though with a entire hoard of confused, leaderless Decepticons in front of her, waiting for an explanation, she wasn’t exactly happy about it.

Thank Primus for Optimus barging his way to the front a nanoklick later, with Bulkhead clearing a path for him and a betrayed-looking Bumblebee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not too happy with how this turned out but it's as good as it's gonna be and we're pretty much near the end so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	11. Chapter 11

In the immediate confusion and mild outrage, both Autobots and Decepticons only able to see Megatron’s torn apart corpse in the spotlight of energon with anything else blurred into the background, Knockout somehow managed to get Starscream’s ragdoll frame into the medbay before his internal tanks ran dry all over the ship. And he seemed to completely forget that he'd once had Arcee restrained to the same table Starscream was bolted down on, at least he didn't stop her when she followed with sticky hands over the Seeker’s still leaking wing wound, having to ignore the beckons of her fellow Autobots behind her and push past a horde of curious, confused Vehicons. 

“If I'd known you were going to take out Megatron, I'd have just let you go,” Knockout muttered with a smile as he hooked Starscream up to a drip, maintaining his stasis lock as he worked on sealing the wide gouge. The doors were locked, leaving the drones and a furious Dreadwing pounding outside, but to Arcee they were miles away. Stasis couldn't mask the pain etched into Starscream’s face, the wincing veil over the shadow of his smug smirk. 

“Is he in any danger?” she asked, no longer caring if anyone knew how worried she was about him.

“No, no, he's just in a whole other league of agony. The shock would be more likely to kill him than the wound,” Knockout replied, pulling out tools that Arcee dimly recognised from when she has to install Starscream’s T Cog. “As soon as its patched up, I'll bring him out of stasis so everyone can worship him and Dreadwing can threaten to tear his helm off. Just another day on the Nemesis.” Knockout laughed to himself but it was a forced sound, his entire facade put on like an elaborate play. Though no one could blame him, blame anyone in the same situation where the mech in charge for so long was so suddenly struck down. 

Arcee’s hands were clean, but energon speckled her peds and trickled down her knees. By contrast Starscream was a gruesome patchwork of stains, most of them on his claws. Even with the rest of his body lost to stasis, they still managed to twitch because he was just that stubborn.

“Can I have a klick to talk to him, before everyone else comes in?” she asked, just as Knockout finished welding the dripping wound into a jagged scar. The medic had an eyeridge quirked, optics passing from her to the disabled Seeker and then back again.

“I suppose so,” he said slowly, setting the welder down and flicking a switch on the console beside the operating table. “But just one klick. Even from here I can feel the drones pressing against the walls and I am _not_ looking forward to walking out in the middle of that.” Though Arcee fully expected him to just stand by the door and shamelessly eavesdrop, he actually left the medbay through a tiny slit in the door, all that was allowed to open before it was squeezed shut again. 

And as Arcee watched him go, Starscream's optics flickered open like sparking embers, and his vocaliser was thick with groans. “Please don't tell me I was dreaming the whole thing...”

If that was the case, Arcee couldn't help wondering if she really would have been the first thing he saw in his dreams. “You weren’t. Actually, most of the energon on you is Megatron's.”

Starscream tried to laugh, but all that came out was a louder groan as he clamped his optics shut again. “That would explain why I feel like I need a shower in acid...” 

Though Arcee would have been strangely content just staying by his side in silence, she didn't have much time left to get the answer to the that question still flashing in her processor. “Why did you kiss me, Starscream?” she asked. 

He looked up at her, maybe trying to see if she was angry, though his optics said what his mouth, even with its grin, couldn't quite manage to get across as the pupils flared ever so slightly. “Why not?” he answered, knowing just how much Arcee wanted to slap him even when he was already ringing and alight with pain, maybe just because she wanted to feel him once more before he slipped away again.

"I mean, why did you wait until the last minute for it?” she pressed. 

Starscream's intact wing fluttered feebly on its joint in a shrug. "Mechs do strange and stupid things when they think they're about to die." Though his tone, under the current of moans and grunts, said he didn't regret it at all, and Arcee was glad of that.

“I think you're a special case," she said.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You do strange and stupid things all the time. And it's not just mechs that do them.” She kissed him before a scowl could take over his lips, the roots of the frown melting between them. He didn't pull away this time, and she didn't want to. With Megatron gone and grudges dissolved, there was nothing left between them but the fact that they couldn't hate each other anymore. 

"Times up, lovebots." The sound of Knockout's lilting voice gave Arcee whiplash as she snapped her helm back up, gasping as she tore away from Starscream's mouth. The lips stayed pouting even when his optics opened and he saw Arcee battling away a blush with her back turned to Knockout's all-knowing, not quite mocking grin. And then she was leaving, faceplate low and numb with embarrassment, but he lunged for her hand just before it went out of his range.

“Arcee, when they get rid of his corpse… take his T Cog out. My brothers…” 

Knockout was getting impatient, twitchy digits on the door controls, but Arcee knew what Starscream meant. “I will,” she promised, squeezing his claws and their dirty razor edges just before the rest of the world surged around them, and she was pulled away back into the grasp of the Autobots. After her time with Starscream, caught in a rebel limbo between factions, she felt like she was meeting her teammates for the first time all over again. 

 

**xx**

 

Over the next few days that went past like everyone except her was hooked up to red energon, Arcee could only answer one of the hundred questions pelted at her. “What happened?”

She killed Megatron. Starscream killed Megatron. A scout and an exiled Seeker did what an entire army of Autobots failed at for centuries. Arcee thought the sheer disbelief that it was really that simple to snuff the warlord’s spark out, the incomprehensible nature of it taking so long to do so, all of that masked over the smaller details, like how she and Starscream even made the alliance or whether Megatron's murderer deserved to inherit his power.

Fortunately with Decepticons, the hierarchy was simple enough that it only made sense for the stronger mech to take a dead ones place, but even then not everyone was happy about the shift in leadership, namely Dreadwing and perhaps Soundwave though he kept everything as well hidden as ever. But with the majority of the Cons surprisingly receptive to the prospect of Starscream ruling them, Dreadwing couldn't do much about it except promise vengeance for Megatron, before falling off the radar somewhere in the ruins of Cybertron.

Soon to be the _former_ ruins, hopefully, if the negotiation today went well. Because the Autobots only had three of the four Omega Keys needed to restore their home, with the last one lying right in Starscream’s claws this whole time.

If Arcee had known he had it, everything might have gone completely different. Megatron might even still be alive. For that, she was glad she didn't know, and glad that Optimus allowed her to accompany him back on board the Nemesis after she'd given up just about every detail she was willing to give about her capture so long ago. It was the second time she could walk through the ship's looming halls without having to worry about getting shot at around every corner, though the Vehicons looked just as frozen and statuesque in their guard positions as they were with red energon in her fuel lines. 

In the command center, the aura of death still heavy over it despite the bridge being scrubbed clean, Starscream was waiting for them with talons behind his back, devoid of dripping stains now, forcing Arcee to admit how regal he could make himself look sometimes. His wing still hung low and showed off a grey scar that wasn't ugly but certainly wasn't easy to look at, especially with Arcee remembering the agony Starscream went through because of it. He blinked at the sight of her by Optimus' side, struggling to hold back a very unprofessional smile, but with Arcee narrowing her stare he recovered and turned his attention back to Optimus.

"Starscream," the Prime greeted with complete neutrality. Whatever he thought of Megatron finally being defeated, even if it wasn't by his own hand, no one could tell. Arcee assumed it was a dignified kind of joy, a true hope for the future that he hadn't felt for so long, that he wasn't quite sure if he should indulge in or not. "I hope we can come to a... mutually beneficial agreement with each other.”

"I'm sure we will, Optimus," Starscream said, suspiciously devoid of snidery and contempt, though his optics glittered with pride that was more out of habit than trying to show superiority. From his subspace he pulled something between two claws, tarnished gold metal that reflected the beady light of his pupils. "I know what you want; the Omega Key. The only thing capable of restoring our homeworld to its former glory." He curled his digits around the toothed ridges, almost daring Arcee to lunge forward and try to snatch it from his grip. But he was looking at her, watching her, not as a warning but more to see her reaction as he said, "And I'm more than happy to hand it over."

Arcee felt herself go blank and she tapped at her audios, convinced they were glitching. Optimus only blinked, eyeridges lifting then furrowing as his mouth curled in a cautious frown. "In return for something, I assume?"

"Of course. But I'm sure you'll find my terms fair." He placed his servo behind his back, claws safely clutching the Key as he started to circle the two Autobots. "As the rightful new leader of the Decepticons, I want a secure place on whatever council you decide to put in place for Cybertron. Specifically, control over the affairs of Vos and all Seekers who wish to dwell there."

Both Optimus and Arcee kept their gaze clamped on him, with Optimus' own narrowing at the request. "You want the power of a Winglord?"

"As I am entitled to," Starscream added. It would have been an arrogant demand from anyone else, but Arcee had the burden of knowing Starscream actually did deserve the title, if only by birthright.

Whether or not Optimus knew that as well, his optics clouded over as he considered the ramifications of giving in. "It only makes sense that a Seeker be in charge of the affairs of his kind. Very well, Starscream. When our home is rebuilt and the ruling body reassembled, I will do all I can to give you a seat of power in Vos."

Starscream's good wing soared up on his joint as he switched around to face them both. "Excellent. I also want a pardon for all Decepticons who seek one. All crimes committed during the war and on Earth, no matter what they may be, must be forgiven in return for them agreeing to a truce between our factions."

"And those Decepticons who seek to continue the war?" Optimus asked, after a heavy calculating vent. 

"They will be considered traitors, and you may do with them as you wish," Starscream said simply with a smile that was only trusting because he'd designed it to be. Or maybe that was Arcee just being cynical, trying to ignore how handsome it made him look. 

Optimus seemed to count through all the bots that label would apply to, weighing up the cost of forsaking justice against that of having to take the Key by force. Finally he said, "That also seems fair."

Starscream returned to his starting post now, but he only started beaming after he seemed to remember something. “Oh, and one more thing. With this truce in place, I believe it would be beneficial to have an Autobot assist with introducing the idea of peace to the soldiers. A diplomat, if you will." He folded his claws together and cast a headlight gaze on Arcee, all sorts of good and bad intentions glittering in the red sea of his optics. It made her shiver, the same way she had when he kissed her, which was not in a bad way at all. 

"And I'd like Arcee to take that role," he said, forcing her to muffle her spark and wipe her faceplate clean of all secret emotion as Optimus looked down at her.

“Arcee, do you have any issues with this proposal?” His tone suggested he certainly did, but that the final choice lay with her whatever it may be. Which was very fortunate.

“Not at all, Optimus," she answered, layering her vocaliser thick with dismissal just to hide the rising wave of anticipation underneath. But for all that effort, Starscream still managed to hear it from how he winked at her while Optimus' back was turned. 

And as he handed over the Omega Key, against all the better judgement still left to her, she winked back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit I actually got something finished for once  
> *party whistle*


End file.
